Tort claims in a divorce action

In Fernandez v Fernandez, Unpub Per Curiam Opinion of the Court of Appeals, (#315584, 6/24/2014) the trial court entered a judgment effectuating the parties’ divorce, which reserved for future adjudication plaintiff’s tort claims and the division of some property and marital debt. After a trial, the court entered an opinion and order finding for plaintiff on her claims of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, awarding plaintiff $10,000 in damages for pain and suffering, awarding defendant $3,000 in damages for his loss of personal property, requiring defendant to pay two-thirds of the parties’ marital debt totaling $29,678.62, and equally dividing among the parties $72,739 in proceeds from the sale of marital real estate.  Affirmed.  Defendant’s conduct went beyond “mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities,” and also went “beyond all possible bound of decency” such that it is “regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Lewis v LeGrow, 258 Mich App 175 (2003) (quotations and citations omitted).

 

To prove a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, a plaintiff must show (1) extreme and outrageous conduct by the defendant, (2) intent or recklessness by the defendant, (3) causation, and (4) the plaintiff’s experience of severe emotional distress. Walsh v Taylor, 263 Mich App 618, 634 (2004). For conduct to qualify as sufficiently extreme and outrageous, it must be “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. A defendant is not liable for mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities.” Lewis, supra, 258 Mich App at 196.

 

Sufficient trial evidence also demonstrated that defendant’s actions caused plaintiff severe emotional distress. Plaintiff testified that she suffered emotional distress and sleeplessness because of defendant’s threats to take the parties’ son and hurt her. Even after she obtained the PPO, she worried that defendant would try to enter her house. The record also contained evidence that plaintiff suffered significant physical trauma during the brutal attack by defendant, which caused lingering pain in her neck. Plaintiff testified that the trauma from the June 30, 2009 incident required her to treat with a mental health therapist. She further testified that at the time of trial she still suffered nightmares, felt easily startled and afraid, and could not perform her job as effectively as she could before the incident.  The evidence thus gave rise to a reasonable inference that defendant’s course of conduct caused plaintiff to experience severe emotional distress, a question for the trial court. Lewis, supra, 258 Mich App at 196; Mull, 196 Mich App at 421.