Emotional Distress & Lawsuits
Michael Babboni
Personal Injury
Ask any techno-literate, 21st century American about the proliferation of social media like Facebook and Twitter, and many people will give you mixed reactions. While it’s clearly acknowledged that social media can broaden exposure to many different points of view, allowing us to see and interact with others, it can also cause a lot argument, disagreement and, in some cases outright hostility.It’s one of the reasons why many Americans are now trying to “cut down” on the amount of social media they consume, in order to remove an extra, significant source of stress from their lives. But for some, this is unavoidable.
That’s why it’s very interesting to see that in late September of this year, one former employee of Facebook actually took the social media giant to court. In this case, the ex-employee is suing for emotional distress and the reason? Working as a content moderator exposed the employee to a continual stream of racism, sexism, child abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, suicide, and murder in the form of text, pictures, and even video, some recorded, and some live.
Facebook actually employees something in the number of 7500 content reviewers in order to monitor, and, if necessary, purge, objectionable content that might appear on the social media platform. They have strict guidelines to try and make the platform as safe and accessible as possible to people of all ages. However, that does mean that when the company is notified of something that is inappropriate, one of these content moderators must investigate.
So this brings up the question, is this case legitimate? This is, after all, not a situation where someone was injured, so can you really go to court for emotional distress alone?
In Florida, you can, but there are very specific conditions required before you can go to court.
What Is Emotional Distress?
First, let’s answer the important question. Emotional distress, in the legal sense, is usually defined as severe, emotional negative experiences, usually so serious that it affects the way a person lives, sometimes even permanently. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is one example of emotional distress that can occur to some servicemen after a tour of duty serving the military, for example, though it can also happen to people living in abusive home situations.
In most legal situations the “easiest” way to bring emotional distress into a lawsuit is to pair it with something else. The most common combination is a personal injury lawsuit, in which emotional distress is also added. This is relatively easy to understand as an injury, especially a permanent one, will obviously cause very severe emotional distress.
For example, getting into a car accident in which a drunk driver is involved, that results in the other driver being rendered paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, while her child, also in the car, died, would be a pretty “open and shut” case of emotional distress. Losing your ability to walk, which will likely affect your ability to work and live, in addition to having your child die, through no fault of your own, is going to have permanent, negative emotional consequences on anyone.
On Its Own
However, while emotional distress from a personal injury case is not that uncommon, it is possible for emotional distress cases to “go it alone.” The workplace, for example, is one area where emotional distress in Florida can go to court. It requires that four requirements be met:
- The emotional distress was intentional, or purposefully inflicted
- The distress is outrageous in conduct
- The conduct caused emotional distress
- The distress itself is severe
A typical case of emotional distress in the workplace is sexual harassment. If a female employee, for example, is constantly touched, groped, propositioned, and even cornered in the workplace for sexual favors, with the employer refusing to stop, this meets all the criteria. The female employee in this case, especially if she has proof and other witnesses to corroborate, could certainly try taking this case to court.
The Facebook Case
What makes the Facebook lawsuit so interesting is that while this is obviously workplace related, the real goal here will be to determine whether the content moderators really did experience an outrageous amount of emotional distress as a result of their job, or whether, like soldiers in the military, they “signed up for this” to a certain degree.
It’s certainly true that it can be traumatizing emotionally to witness a murder, rape, suicide, or even child sexual abuse, whether it is recorded or a live broadcast. So there’s a compelling argument to be made here that to see these things repeatedly, perhaps even on a daily basis, certainly counts as outrageous conduct. But whether Facebook can be seen as intentionally inflicting this, and thus being held liable is another question entirely, that will have to be settled in court.