What constitutes intentional infliction of emotional distress?
With r/bobola in full swing again, I read back the absolutely bonkers story that basically swept the awards last year about the manager harassing a Jewish employee and the employee both posting on r/la. Not gonna risk a user ping but jomros was brilliant in linking those two posts.
But what I'm curious about is whether the situation rises to the level of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Specifically lying to someone that the food is kosher, feeding them a pie made with lard and then telling them about it after they have had some: would this be considered iied or still not?
Posted Dec 23, 2019, 10:54 AM UTC
32
It's more likely that it would be considered simple battery; adulterating a specific person's food easily fits into the definition of "offensive touching". The fact that the adulterant was subjectively noxious or offensive instead of objectively toxic, infectious, or otherwise harmful might be a mitigating factor but not an element of the offense.
California has pattern jury instructions that serve as enhanced guides to the elements of a tort or crime and the some of the related caselaw.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress is CACI 1600.
I think the most difficult factor will be determining if the lard-baking manager's conduct was "so extreme as to exceed all bounds of that usually tolerated in a civilized community".
That might be a circumstance where the community standards as expressed by the jury come into play. Maybe a jury in Los Angeles would not consider intentional subjecting a kosher Jew to lard to be intolerable, but a jury in South Williamsburg would.
Very interesting, thank you! IIED is one of those things that gets bandied about a lot as a cause of action but very rarely rises to being an actual case. Much like entrapment I suppose. I thought maybe this might be it and you are right -- more likely to be considered that in Brooklyn than say..Alabama.