Section 4 Foreseeability Test

• Library: Damages 2012

In Bass v. Nooney Co., 646 S.W.2d 765 (Mo. banc 1983), the Supreme Court of Missouri established that recovery for emotional distress is allowed when the risk of distress is reasonably foreseeable and the emotional distress is medically significant. The foreseeability requirement defines and limits the types of conduct for which liability for emotional damages may be imposed. Accordingly, a defendant does not have a “duty to be careful not to shock or frighten people.” Id. at 770 (quoting 2 Fowler V. Harper & Fleming James, The Law of Torts § 18.4, p. 1035 (1956)). Instead, the defendant’s standard of conduct is measured according to “a workaday world rather than to the hypersensitive.” Id. at 770–71.

The Court in Bass defined the question of whether the plaintiff made a submissible case on the issue of...