Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)

Citation: Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)
Parent Document: Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 1997-09-23
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2395626/carl-v-childrens-hospital/ ↗

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Judge Ferren's separate opinion, although primarily addressed to Judge Steadman's dissent, appears to find an inconsistency between my view of the general advisability of *164 abstention by the courts from declaring public policy and this court's decision in Williams v. Baker, 572 A.2d 1062 (D.C.1990) (en banc). In Williams, however, while we recognized that the issue presented there (whether, and to what extent, a plaintiff can recover tort damages for fear of harm to a third person) was "a question of policy for the court" to decide, id. at 1072, we were referring to "policy" in the sense of "the framework of traditional and accepted negligence principles," id. at 1073 (citation omitted). Within that framework we modestly expanded the scope of recovery for the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress. That is very different from a court's undertaking in every case of claimed wrongful discharge to "balance the interests of the employee, the employer, and the public," Pierce v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 84 N.J. 58, 71, 417 A.2d 505, 511 (1980), and decide for itself the proper "public policy" outcome of the dispute. In this regard we are mindful of what the Supreme Court of California has said:

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