How To Prove Emotional Distress: Accidents, Harassment, and Bystander Claims

You can prove emotional distress damages with medical documentation, therapy notes, journals, and expert witness testimony. The jury can reasonably estimate the value of your emotional distress damages based on the extent of your injuries. Types of emotional distress claims include negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and bystander claims when a close family member suffers severe injury or death.

For more information about proving emotional distress, talk to a local personal injury attorney.

What Is Emotional Distress?

Emotional distress is the mental, emotional, and psychological harm an injury victim suffers after a traumatic event. Victims can recover non-economic damages in a personal injury lawsuit, including emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, and mental anguish. Examples of mental health issues associated with emotional distress include:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Insomnia and sleep disturbances
• Eating disorders
• Panic attacks

For example, a driver is severely injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The injured driver loses a leg in the accident and suffers severe mental suffering that continues after the physical wounds heal.

The injury victim suffers depression when they think of losing a limb, can no longer participate in running races, and suffers panic attacks when they get into a vehicle. Depression, loss of enjoyment in life, and panic attacks are all examples of the injury victim’s emotional distress.

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When Can You Sue for Emotional Distress?

Most emotional distress claims follow a personal injury claim, such as a car accident, burn injury, or medical mistake. Emotional and mental health injuries can be a direct result of the traumatic injury accident. However, not all emotional distress claims require a physical injury.

Other causes of psychological trauma can include negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED). These non-physical injury claims vary by jurisdiction. Talk to a personal injury attorney about bystander and harassment claims that don’t result in physical injuries.

Emotional Distress in a Personal Injury Claim

The most common types of emotional distress claims involve personal injury accidents. Personal injury law includes accidents caused by negligence. Common personal injury cases that involve emotional trauma include:

• Car accidents
• Pedestrian or bike accidents
• Slip and fall injuries
• Defective product liability claims
• Medical malpractice
• Birth injuries
• Burn injuries
• Work-related injuries

To prove negligence in a personal injury claim, you must show the defendant owed you a duty of care, breached it, and caused your injuries. The party responsible for causing your injuries is liable for damages, including physical and mental harm.

Emotional Distress for Harassment

Not all personal injury claims require physical injury or contact. Extreme harassment that causes severe emotional distress can give rise to a legal cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED). This can include sexual harassment, stalking harassment, or job discrimination.

To prove intentional infliction of emotional distress, the injury victim must prove:

• The defendant engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct
• The defendant intended to cause severe emotional distress or acted recklessly
• The defendant’s conduct caused the victim to suffer actual severe emotional distress

Common insults or annoyances do not rise to the level of extreme conduct. Calling someone names or making a couple of prank phone calls generally does not amount to outrageous conduct. Extreme and outrageous conduct exceeds the bounds of human decency.

Can Bystanders Get Emotional Distress Damages?

Witnessing an injury accident or fatal car accident can be distressing, even if you do not suffer any physical injuries. The mental distress is more traumatizing when you witness a loved one get injured or killed. Some states allow bystanders to recover emotional distress injuries, even if they do not suffer any physical injury.

Some states allow bystanders to sue for negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) when they suffer severe mental distress after witnessing an accident. However, other states require the bystander to have physical symptoms or another physical manifestation of their emotional distress.

Bystander claims vary by state and use different approaches to establish emotional distress. Under the impact rule, the bystander must have some physical impact caused by the defendant’s negligence. Under the Dillon v. Legg foreseeability approach, the bystander must be closely related to the victim, present at the scene, aware of the injury, and suffering severe emotional distress as a result.

Some states follow a zone-of-danger rule. Immediate family members can file for emotional harm damages when they witness a loved one’s severe injury or death and are within the zone of danger. The requirements for bystander emotional-distress recovery vary by state and may include a close relationship, contemporaneous perception of the injury-causing event, severe distress, or, in zone-of-danger states, being within the zone of danger.

For example, if you are across the street and watch your spouse trip and fall in front of a bus, suffering severe injury, it may be hard to claim emotional distress damages because you were not in the zone of danger. However, if you were standing next to your spouse, you would have a stronger emotional distress claim.

Proving Emotional Distress Damages

Proving economic damages, including medical bills and lost wages, is more straightforward because there is a clear economic value. Proving noneconomic damages is harder because their value is less clear. Gather medical documentation and other evidence of your mental state and how it changed since the accident. Evidence of emotional distress can include:

• Medical records
• Therapy notes from a psychiatrist or psychologist
• Expert testimony from mental health professionals
• Witness statements from friends and family
• Job evaluations showing a change in performance
• Journals and diaries
• Day-in-the-life videos

Your case may benefit from a mental health expert witness to explain to the jury how the accident caused your emotional distress, the extent of the emotional trauma, and your mental health prognosis for the future.

Find Legal Help

For legal advice on proving emotional distress after an accident or harassment, or for bystander claims, contact a personal injury lawyer.