Can you sue for emotional distress in small claims court in California?
California has a court that handles civil cases, which do not exceed $10,000 in small claims. These courts are an innovation to facilitate both cheaper and simpler way to get compensation for the less serious disputes without a need to hire a lawyer. Today, can we sue someone in the small-claims court for it or not?
The short answer just might be yes. California law legalizes awarding of emotional distress damages, but there is strict limit on small claims court.
How Far Is One's Emotional Distress Acceptable?
Emotional distress, in the context of emotional discomfort, distress, and other such mental suffering inflicted by the actions of another party, is defined as such. For example, emotional distress claims could arise from:
- Harassing, discriminating or abusing women will not be tolerated in our community.
- As no one can face the nightmare of going to prison or losing his/her rights without just cause.
- Attending a tragic crash in which someone was injured or killed, that would have deep psychological process on my personality.
- One of the issues brought up by the heavy surveillance is the intrusion on privacy.
Still, the two sides could probably not use emotional damages as their ground for suing a company just for the annoyance, injury, or stress being felt by the latter employees. Worthiness of such conduct is also dependent on being extreme or outrageous.
Small Claims Court is indeed the primary form of justice for many, but its own limited powers give way to even more complex issues.
There are a couple challenges to successfully suing for emotional distress in small claims:
- Punitive damages that punish cannot be involved. Only after those real costs are recovered would the other types of damage or loss be considered.
- To be admissible, emotional distress cannot be examined as a separate claim. It must be proven that there is another underlying civil claim such as harm to property, finances, rights or safety.
Now, the only limit for small claims courts to award damages for mental distress that goes hand in hand with actual loss of material is when the purported sufferer is also lacking other causes of action. In this case, the $10,000 limit becomes the ceiling. Thus, the amount of funds that could be recovered is reduced.
An attorney should be consulted, to clarify if the small claims court is adequate to give reasonable payment for any emotional injury suffered. However, except for claims with slight psychological consequences for amicable property damage, breach of contract, or physical injury, small claims may still be a resourceful option to utilize.
