Depo Questions Give Rise To Emotional Distress Suit

The New Jersey Law Journal (via law.com) reports that a plaintiff’s attorney has sued defense counsel for “inflicting grievous emotional distress” on the plaintiffs during a deposition.  The underlying case involved a medical malpractice suit based on the death of the plaintiffs’ daughter.   At the depo, counsel for the defendant-doctor asked the father what “he thought might have happened to the baby, whether he felt the couple’s baby nurse or nanny had committed negligent homicide and whether his wife had been involved in the death.”  The suit claims that as a result of those questions, the wife left the depo “so wracked with guilt and so depressed that she does not want to leave her house, socialize or enjoy family activities; that she spends whole days crying in bed and that she has started seeing a psychiatrist. The plaintiffs say they both feel humiliated, embarrassed and insulted.”

– SBS