Zone of Danger: Recovery for Non-Family Members who Witness Something Horrific

A couple months ago we sent out a newsletter about bystander claims.

Bystander claims are one species of negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. They involve emotional trauma resulting from seeing a family member’s physical injury. The big issues in these cases are whether the family member was there when the injury happened or got there before there were any big changes to the scene. (A common fight is about whether first-responders moved or changed the family member’s position before his wife or kids arrived on the scene.)

It seems unfair to only compensate family members. Non-family members can definitely be traumatized by witnessing something really grisly.

And that too is recognized by Washington law. In addition to claims by family members there’s a second species of negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. They’re called “zone of danger” claims.

To recover you don’t have to be a family member. But you do need to have been in immediate danger of physical harm when you saw the horrible thing go down.

Here’s how Courts explain it:

The zone of danger rule applies when a defendant’s actions are directed at the plaintiff himself and the plaintiff is physically impacted by the event or the threat of physical impact is immediate.

Here are a couple of examples of cases where zone of danger claims have been recognized:

* A semi-truck driver was driving northbound on I-5 when a derailed train crashed from an overhead bridge. The train fell onto the southbound lanes across of I-5. The plaintiff pulled over, got out of his truck and ran across the freeway to assist victims. He was not injured and was not related to anyone at the scene. But he saw the train hit their vehicles and, of course, the aftermath.

* A tower crane collapsed from a building under construction. It killed and injured several people. The plaintiff, an ironworker, was working on disassembling the crane on the ground and witnessed it collapse directly overhead. The plaintiff immediately ran to the collapsed crane cab to rescue his coworkers and others injured on site. He was not related to anyone involved.

Accidents often involve multiple people who are placed in immediate danger, even if only one person is physically injured. Washington law recognizes that witnesses who narrowly avoid injury are still impacted by the experience.

#nied

#negligent infliction

#bystander

#zone of danger