Torts - Cases, Principles, and Institutions Fifth Edition, 2016a

Witt & Tani, TCPI 2. Intentional Harms
ask a manager to open the doors, but “[m]anagers were often unavailable and were sometimes not
even in the store.” Id. at 532. The court characterized the store’s emergency exits as a reasonable
means of escape, even though, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, “no one ever showed [the
plaintiffs] the location of emergency exits and their minimal proficiency in English would make it
difficult or impossible to find them on their own.” Id. at 544-45.
3. Does motive matter? False imprisonment requires intent, but it is only intent to confine,
not intent to harm. Indeed, false imprisonment cases often arise from scenarios in which the
actors who caused the confinement thought they were playing a joke, protecting private property,
or even looking out for the best interests of the person they confined (for example, by removing
the actor from the influence of a cult). Such motives may assist the defendant in establishing an
affirmative defense (as discussed in later pages), but they generally will not prevent the plaintiff
from establishing a prima facie case of false imprisonment.
4. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Of all the intentional torts discussed so far, intentional inflection of emotional distress
(IIED) is of the most recent vintage. Although it has roots in late nineteenth-century English
common law, see Wilkinson v. Downton, [1897] 2 Q.B. 57, only in the 1930s did legal
commentators take note of its arrival on the American scene. One way of thinking about IIED is
with reference to injuries that other, more established causes of action had left unrecognized and
uncompensated; when that lack of recognition became noticeable, and then intolerable, the tort of
IIED emerged to fill the void.
GTE Southwest v. Bruce, 998 S.W.2d 605 (Tex. 1999)
ABBOTT, J.
In this case we determine whether three GTE Southwest, Incorporated employees may
recover damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress based on the workplace conduct of
their supervisor. The trial court rendered judgment for the employees on the jury verdict, and the
court of appeals affirmed. We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
I. Facts
Three GTE employees, Rhonda Bruce, Linda Davis, and Joyce Poelstra, sued GTE for
intentional infliction of emotional distress premised on the constant humiliating and abusive
behavior of their supervisor, Morris Shields. . . . Between 1981 and May 1991, Shields worked as
a supervisor in GTE’s supply department in Jacksonville, Arkansas. During his tenure there, four
of Shields’s subordinate employees (none of the employees involved in this case) filed formal
grievances against Shields with GTE, alleging that Shields constantly harassed them. . . . GTE
investigated Shields’s conduct in 1988 and 1989, but took no formal disciplinary action against
him.
In May 1991, GTE transferred Shields from Jacksonville to Nash, Texas, where he
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