On the other hand, a Rhode Island plaintiff was able to proceed with her claim for NIED after a defendant hotel negligently delayed 14 minutes before calling an ambulance for her husband who had sustained and subsequently died from a heart attack. The court held that, unlike a medical malpractice claim, the plaintiff was not required to know at the time that the defendant had failed to summon an ambulance.
In Commonwealth countries, the tort of NIED is referred to as nervous shock. As in the United States, the claimant has to be a close relative who is involved in the immediate aftermath of a horrifying event, and sustains foreseeable psychological harm leading to a well-defined psychiatric illness.
This column, “Law & Medicine,” appears regularly in Internal Medicine News, a publication of Elsevier. Dr. Tan is former professor of medicine and adjunct professor of law at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. This article is meant to be educational and does not constitute medical, ethical, or legal advice. It is adapted from the author’s book, “Medical Malpractice: Understanding the Law, Managing the Risk” (Hackensack, N.J.; World Scientific Publishing Company, 2006). For additional information, readers may contact the author at siang@hawaii.edu.