## Facts

- Serita J. Weathersby worked for Kentucky Fried Chicken National Management Company (KFC) and became a training store manager.
- Lee Watts, KFC’s area manager and Weathersby’s superior, was romantically involved with an assistant manager at Weathersby’s store; Weathersby complained and confronted him.
- A cash-register funds shortage was discovered; Weathersby asserted she had reported to KFC’s security director that Watts failed to change register locks and disclosed his relationship with a subordinate.
- KFC required Weathersby to take a polygraph examination and placed the store under a manager Weathersby had previously trained, which she considered degrading.
- Watts suspended Weathersby publicly (in front of customers and employees) and later demoted her.
- Weathersby experienced severe emotional distress, obtained psychiatric treatment, and was hospitalized for about six weeks.
- Expert evidence indicated Weathersby had borderline personality traits increasing susceptibility to emotional distress, but the traits would not necessarily be apparent; the record did not show KFC knew of this vulnerability.
- A jury found for Weathersby on intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) and awarded damages, but the trial court entered judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) for KFC and Watts; the intermediate appellate court reversed; the highest state court reviewed.

## Issues

1. Whether the employer’s conduct surrounding investigation of a cash shortage and subsequent public suspension and demotion was “extreme and outrageous” enough to support IIED under Maryland law.
2. Whether IIED could be based on the employee’s unusual psychological susceptibility absent evidence the employer knew (or had reason to know) of that susceptibility.
3. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to sustain the jury’s IIED verdict, making JNOV improper.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the intermediate appellate court and reinstated the trial court’s JNOV for KFC and Watts.
- The court held that, even crediting Weathersby’s version of events, requiring a polygraph, reassigning management responsibilities, and publicly suspending and demoting her were not “extreme and outrageous” conduct under Maryland’s strict IIED doctrine.
- The court held there was no evidence KFC knew, or should have known, Weathersby had an atypical psychological vulnerability; therefore, the conduct had to be evaluated against the effect on an ordinary employee.
- The case was remanded with instructions to affirm the JNOV, and Weathersby was assessed costs.

## Legal Principles

- Maryland treats IIED as an exceptional tort subject to stringent proof requirements.
- IIED requires conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree,” as to exceed all bounds of decency and be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.
- Ordinary workplace disputes, including harsh or unfair discipline, generally do not meet the “extreme and outrageous” threshold.
- The employer–employee relationship is a contextual factor in assessing outrageousness but does not substitute for proof of extreme misconduct.
- If a plaintiff relies on special emotional or psychological susceptibility to convert otherwise non-outrageous conduct into IIED, the plaintiff must show the defendant knew (or had reason to know) of that susceptibility.

## Conclusion

Maryland’s highest court reinstated judgment for the employer, ruling that workplace investigation and disciplinary actions—even if humiliating and followed by severe distress—did not satisfy Maryland’s extreme-outrage requirement for IIED, and liability could not rest on unusual psychological susceptibility without proof the employer knew of it.


Kentucky Fried Chicken Nat'l Mgmt. Co. v. Weathersby, 326 Md. 663, 607 A.2d 8 (1992)