Scherr v. Hilton Hotels Corp.

Opinion

COMPTON, J.

Plaintiff, Karen Scherr, while watching television in Los Angeles on February 10, 1981, saw live news coverage of a fire at defendant’s Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. Victor Scherr, plaintiff’s husband, was a guest at the hotel at the time and suffered physical injuries in the fire. Together they brought the instant action against defendant Las Vegas Hilton. Mr. Scherr alleged personal injuries and property damage while Mrs. Scherr, in a separate cause of action, alleged negligent infliction of emotional distress. The court sustained defendant’s demurrer to Karen Scherr’s cause of action without leave to amend.

1

She appealed the subsequent dismissal of her cause of action. We affirm.

Plaintiff contends that as a third party bystander to her husband’s injuries in the fire she was a foreseeable plaintiff and stated a cause of action within the parameters of

Dillon

v.

Legg

(1968) 68 Cal.2d 728 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316]. In that case the California Supreme Court set forth three now-familiar guidelines to be considered in determining whether the mental distress alleged by a bystander to an accident was reasonably foreseeable and therefore actionable. These are: (1) whether the bystander was located near the scene of the accident; (2) whether the bystander’s shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon him from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident; and (3) whether the bystander and the accident victim were closely related.

(Dillon

v.

Legg, supra,

at pp. 740-741.) Defendant has conceded the last point, of course.

The court in

Dillon

expanded tort liability for emotional distress to include safely located bystanders, but it also acknowledged the necessity for limiting this otherwise potentially infinite liability which follows every negligent act.

(Dillon

v.