CA: Contemporaneous Awareness of Defendant's Role in Causing Family Member's Injury Not Required for NIED Claim

The California Supreme Court held that in a negligent infliction of emotional distress case, the plaintiff need not be aware of the defendant’s role in causing the family member’s physical injury at the time the injury occurs:

Downey v. City of Riverside, ___ Cal. 5th ___, ___, ___ Cal. Rptr. 3d ___, ___, ___ P.3d ___, ___, 2024 WL 3491142, at *1, 2024 Cal. LEXIS 3887, at **2-3 (2024) (“For purposes of clearing the awareness threshold for emotional distress recovery, it is awareness of an event that is injuring the victim — not awareness of the defendant's role in causing the injury — that matters”; holding that plaintiff, who “was giving driving directions to her daughter over cell phone when her daughter was severely injured in a car crash . . . [,] heard the collision and its immediate aftermath” and allegedly suffered emotional distress as a result, could recover from “individuals and entities responsible for the condition of the roadway where the crash occurred” even though she did not know at the time of the accident that these parties were partially at fault.).