California Supreme Court· 8/25/1980

Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals

Citations

616 P.2d 813
27 Cal. 3d 916
167 Cal. Rptr. 831
16 A.L.R. 4th 518
1980 Cal. LEXIS 207

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

recognizing broader stan dard of foreseeability for direct victim whose wife was negligently and incorrectly diagnosed as having syphilis, leading to the destruction of the marriage
noting traditional California rule that existence of independent cause of action provides guarantee of genuineness for emotional distress claim
recognizing NIED based only on “serious” emotional 5 harm but noting the justification for the previous rule requiring physical injury “appear[ed] to be 6 that it serve[d] as a screening device to minimize a presumed risk of feigned injuries and false 7 claims”
noting the rule requiring mental injury be accompanied by physical injuries “encourages extravagant pleading and distorted testimony” by claimants trying to fit their emotional anguish claims into the physical injury framework
defendant's negligent diagnosis that plaintiff's wife had syphilis stated a claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress
defendant’s negligent diagnosis that plaintiff’s wife had syphilis stated a claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Mosk, Clark

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Cited by

259 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

34 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

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