If you’re a lawyer, you might hear legal terminology all the time. You may hardly notice it. If you’re a layperson, though, you might feel lost if someone starts speaking legalese.
For instance, you might not know the term emotional distress negligent infliction. If this occurs in your life, though, it can impact you significantly. This concept often matters in divorce cases and traumatic events.
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What is Emotional Distress Negligent Infliction?
This term might sound fancy, but it’s a fairly simple concept. Lawyers call this a tort. A tort is a wrongful act. When someone treats someone else badly, that can cause legal action.
Emotional distress negligent infliction means someone acted poorly, and you feel they wronged you. That can manifest according to various actions or inactions. Sometimes, a spouse acts this way.
While you can easily understand when someone wrongs you, there’s no guarantee the legal system will feel their action equals emotional distress negligent infliction. This is actually one of the harder concepts to prove in court.
It’s not like battery, where you can show your bruises as concrete proof. This is a more abstract concept you can’t always prove to a court’s satisfaction.
What Are Some Emotional Distress Negligent Infliction Examples?
Most states abbreviate this concept. They will use the letters NEID. You will hear lawyers use this abbreviation as well.
If you want to prove this activity or action occurred, you must establish the defendant did something they knew would cause you emotional distress. In some states, the court only lets you claim NEID if the spouse or other person’s actions nearly caused bodily harm. In other states, you can only claim NEID if a physical injury occurred.
Because NEID requirements vary by state, you might claim it if you’re in a restaurant with your spouse and they lose their temper. They punch one of the servers for messing up their order.
Even though your spouse struck the server and not you, you might fear physical harm. The assault happened right next to you. In some states, you can make a NEID claim in this instance.
What Else Constitutes NEID?
Here’s another example. You’re walking down the sidewalk with your child. A car jumps the curb and hits your little girl.
You can claim NEID because even though the car did not hit you, it almost did. You felt you were in the danger zone, and you can bring legal action for that reason.
The emotional distress claim you bring against the defendant becomes more viable if you and your lawyer establish you felt fear and experienced trauma. Any time the jury understands that concept, you have a decent shot at collecting damages.
What Can You Do if You Experience NEID?
If someone didn’t harm you, but they came close, that might constitute a NEID experience. If you’re not a lawyer, though, you must ask one about that.
A lawyer knows about NEID claims in your state, especially a personal injury lawyer. NEID claims fall under the wide personal injury umbrella. These claims sometimes don’t make the most egregious personal injury stories, but they still qualify.
Usually, if you want to bring legal action because of a NEID experience, you’ll need to visit a personal injury lawyer and explain all the details about what occurred. You should not leave anything out. The more information and context you give, the better your lawyer can understand and analyze the situation.
What Can You Win in These Cases?
Your lawyer can tell you whether you have a NEID case or not. Again, various states have different definitions, and this concept is sometimes a little murky.
An expert lawyer can help you, though. They can say whether they feel you have a NEID case and what evidence you’ll need to establish it. Sometimes, there’s no physical evidence, but you can testify about what happened. If you can produce other eyewitnesses, that should help you in court.
You might also introduce camera footage if any exists. Maybe the incident happened on camera. You can spot cameras everywhere these days, and pictures or videos should help your case.
If the defendant’s lawyer feels the tide turning against their client in court, they might tell them a settlement offer makes sense. You may walk away with hundreds or thousands of dollars.
You’ll need to pay your lawyer, but you might still get both money and satisfaction. Your recovery from this trauma will still take time, though.