Emotional harm and negligence

PP v DD, 2016 ONSC 258:

[72]           The elements of a negligence claim are: (1) the defendant owes the plaintiff a duty of care; (2) the defendant's behaviour breached the standard of care; (3) the plaintiff suffered compensable damages; (4) the damages were caused in fact by the defendant's breach; and, (5) the damages are not too remote in law: Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., 2008 SCC 27(CanLII) at para. 3. In the absence of any physical injury, damages for emotional harm are too remote unless the emotional harm constitutes a recognizable psychiatric illness: Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., supra; Healey v. Lakeridge Health Corporation, 2011 ONCA 55 (CanLII), aff'g 2010 ONSC 725 (CanLII). At law, compensable emotional harm connotes trauma or illness that is serious and prolonged and the law does not recognize upset, disgust, anxiety, agitation or other mental states that fall short of this standard of personal injury: Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., supra at para. 9.

Of the Law Societies of Upper Canada and Nunavut