Section 2 Historical Overview

• Library: Damages 2012

Historically, Missouri courts were skeptical of emotional distress claims, commonly holding that damages for them were too uncertain, too indefinite, and too speculative to allow for recovery. See, e.g., Trigg v. St. Louis, Kansas City & N. Ry. Co., 74 Mo. 147 (1881) (a train passenger who was carried past her stop, but who did not suffer any physical injury, could not recover for the anxiety and suspense the incident caused); Connell v. W. Union Tel. Co., 22 S.W. 345 (Mo. 1893) (a plaintiff could not recover damages for the nondelivery of a telegram, even though it caused him emotional distress by failing to inform him of his child’s dying condition until after the child’s death and burial).

Thus, to avoid opening a “floodgate” of emotional distress claims based on purely...