high threshold standard in Tennessee

2025In Bain, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that it is not an easy burden to meet the essential elements of outrageous conduct and stated that it “has adopted and applied the high threshold standard described in the Restatement (Second) of Torts.” Id. at 622 .

2018Generally, the case is one in which the recitation of the facts to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim, ‘Outrageous!’ -6- Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 comment d (1965); see also Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618 , 622–23 (Tenn. 1997) (“Although no perfect legal standard exists for determining whether particular conduct is so intolerable as to be tortious, this Court has adopted and applied the high threshold standard described in the Restatement (Second) of Torts . . . .”).

2003Bain, 936 S.W.2d at 622 (finding that hospital’s policy of placing patients known to be HIV infected in the same room with patients not so infected without warning or consent did not constitute outrageous conduct and stating “[a]lthough no perfect legal standard exists for determining whether particular conduct is so intolerable as to be tortious,” the high threshold standard described in Comment d. to Section 46(1) of the RESTATEMENT applied); Alexander v. Inman, 825 S.W.2d 102, 105 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992) (holding defendant’s affair with plaintiff’s wife, though inappropriate and unacceptable,