Cite as: 512 U. S. 532 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
fined it.3 No jurisdiction, however, allows recovery for all emotional harms, no matter how intangible or trivial, that might be causally linked to the negligence of another. Indeed, significant limitations, taking the form of "tests" or "rules," are placed by the common law on the right to recover for negligently inflicted emotional distress, and have been since the right was first recognized late in the last century.
Behind these limitations lie a variety of policy considerations, many of them based on the fundamental differences between emotional and physical injuries. "Because the etiology of emotional disturbance is usually not as readily apparent as that of a broken bone following an automobile accident, courts have been concerned . . . that recognition of a cause of action for [emotional] injury when not related to any physical trauma may inundate judicial resources with a flood of relatively trivial claims, many of which may be imagined or falsified, and that liability may be imposed for highly remote consequences of a negligent act." Maloney v. Conroy, 208 Conn. 392, 397-398, 545 A. 2d 1059, 1061 (1988). The last concern has been particularly significant. Emotional injuries may occur far removed in time and space from the negligent conduct that triggered them. Moreover, in contrast to the situation with physical injury, there are no necessary finite limits on the number of persons who might suffer emotional injury as a result of a given negligent act.4 The
3 There are a few exceptions. Negligent infliction of emotional distress is not actionable in Alabama. See Allen v. Walker, 569 So. 2d 350 (Ala. 1990). It is unclear whether such a claim is cognizable in Arkansas. Compare Mechanics Lumber Co. v. Smith, 296 Ark. 285, 752 S. W. 2d 763 (1988), with M. B. M. Co. v. Counce, 268 Ark. 269, 596 S. W. 2d 681 (1980).
4 See Pearson, Liability to Bystanders for Negligently Inflicted Emotional Harm—A Comment on the Nature of Arbitrary Rules, 34 U. Fla. L. Rev. 477, 507 (1982) ("The geographic risk of physical impact caused by the defendant's negligence in most cases is quite limited, which accordingly limits the number of people subjected to that risk. There is no similar finite range of risk for emotional harm").
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