## Facts

- JoAnne Marie Sinn lived with her husband and two minor daughters, Lisa and Deborah, in Elizabeth Township, Pennsylvania.
- On June 12, 1975, Lisa and Deborah stood near the family’s roadside mailbox along Greenock–Buena Vista Road.
- Brad Lee Burd allegedly drove negligently, struck Lisa at the mailbox, threw her through the air, and caused fatal injuries.
- Sinn, standing in her home’s doorway and looking toward the mailbox, contemporaneously saw her daughter struck and killed.
- Sinn alleged she was not in personal physical danger and had no reason to fear for her own safety.
- Sinn alleged severe emotional shock causing continuing physical injuries and nervous disorders.
- Sinn sued Burd; a separate count sought damages for Sinn’s own physical and mental injuries from witnessing Lisa’s death.
- Burd filed preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer to that count, asserting Pennsylvania law required the plaintiff to be in a “zone of danger.”
- The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed Sinn’s individual emotional-distress count.

## Issues

1. Whether a mother who contemporaneously witnesses the negligent, fatal injury of her child may recover for resulting physical and mental injuries despite being outside any zone of personal physical danger and lacking fear for her own safety.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the order sustaining the demurrer and remanded for trial on the mother’s bystander emotional-distress claim.
- The court held the complaint stated a cognizable cause of action for negligently inflicted emotional distress with alleged physical consequences, notwithstanding the mother’s absence from any zone of danger.
- The court rejected a rigid zone-of-danger limitation and adopted a foreseeability-based approach to define when bystander recovery is permitted.

## Legal Principles

- On demurrer, courts accept as true all well-pleaded material facts and reasonable inferences; novelty of a theory is not, by itself, a basis to dismiss at the pleading stage.
- Liability for bystander emotional harm turns on reasonable foreseeability, not a categorical requirement that the plaintiff faced personal physical peril.
- Foreseeability is assessed using limiting factors, including:
  - The plaintiff’s proximity to the accident scene.
  - Whether the shock results from direct, contemporaneous sensory observation of the accident.
  - The existence of a close familial relationship between the plaintiff and the injured person.
- Concerns about proof difficulties and fraudulent claims do not justify a categorical bar where the alleged circumstances make serious emotional harm to a close family bystander reasonably foreseeable.

## Conclusion

The court permitted a mother’s claim for negligently inflicted emotional distress arising from contemporaneously witnessing her child’s death, replacing a strict zone-of-danger rule with a foreseeability framework constrained by proximity, contemporaneous perception, and close family relationship.


Sinn v. Burd, 404 A.2d 672 (Pa. 1979)