Section 5 Medically Significant Injury 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. In a footnote, the Court discussed the term “medically significant,” citing Comment, Negligently Inflicted Mental Distress: The Case for an Independent Tort, 59 Geo. L.J. 1237, 1254 (1971), and Negligence and the Infliction of Emotional Harm: A Reappraisal of the Nervous Shock Cases, 35 U. Chi. L. Rev. 512, 517 (1968). Bass, 646 S.W.2d at 781 n.4. Quoting those articles, the Court described the term “medically significant” as “serious enough to require medical attention,” but excluding “mere upset, dismay, humiliation, grief, and...