• NateNate60@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    “Emotional distress” is not “made me upset”. It’s “murdered my wife and kids in front of my eyes so now I have PTSD and need therapy for life”.

    Edit: To elaborate, see Jane W. v. President & Directors of Georgetown Coll., 863 A.2d 821, 826–27 (D.C. 2004). You must be in physical danger to claim negligent infliction of emotional distress in Washington, DC.

    The guy has no damages. He didn’t quit his job over this; he didn’t book tickets for a cruise around the world; he didn’t make an offer to buy a mansion with the money. He didn’t suffer any financial loss whatsoever.

    Courts don’t decide whether someone deserves money because others were unfair to them. They decide whether someone deserves compensation for undue financial loss.

    I expect him to either lose this case, win nominal damages (i.e. one dollar), or settle for a nuisance/PR amount.

    • zaph@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      “Emotional distress” is not “made me upset”. It’s “murdered my wife and kids in front of my eyes so now I have PTSD and need therapy for life”.

      New to US civil law?

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Nope. See Jane W. v. President & Directors of Georgetown Coll., 863 A.2d 821, 826–27 (D.C. 2004), which sets the precedent in Washington, DC where this case was filed. The incident occurred in Washington, DC.

        You must be in physical danger to claim negligent infliction of emotional distress in DC. This case is where the DC Court of Appeals ruled that if you were not in danger then you’re not entitled to damages.

        Feel free to cite a relevant DC authority to the contrary if you think I’m wrong.

          • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            That’s not an authority. “Authority” means a court case or statute. It doesn’t matter what the case is in other jurisdictions because this case was filed in DC court and DC law applies. That’s why I cited the DC Court of Appeals. It’s not pertinent to this particular case what the requirements are to establish a claim of negligent emotional distress in other jurisdictions.

            • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              Loving that the only dude who posted valid legal precedent in the same jurisdiction is getting down voted.

              And then Lemmy users will complain how ass Reddit is for exactly this lmao.

              • Badabinski@kbin.social
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                9 months ago

                I didn’t downvote those posts, but I did feel like the thread was aggressive when it didn’t need to be. I’d guess that a flippant/passive aggressive remark like “New to US civil law?” was (rightfully) upsetting to the user who clearly has an understanding of the law here. That user responded in kind and defended their original comment. However, they then kept responding to other users in a fairly aggressive fashion, even when those other users were communicating in alright way.

                I totally get it. I’d be pissed if, after posting a well reasoned and researched comment on Kubernetes, someone responded saying “new to container orchestration?” I try (and sometimes fail) to express the more vulnerable feelings underneath anger online after dealing with my anger in meatspace. I find it results in more productive conversations. It’s hard to do that, so I’m not casting aspersions. I think that’s probably why people downvoted in this case though. People try to suppress and avoid aggression and conflict because those things are uncomfortable and used to be precursors to actual physical danger. It’s just biology and emotions at work.