Parsons v. Superior Court

In Parsons v. Superior Court (1978) 81 Cal.App.3d 506, the court issued mandate directing the trial court to set aside its order and to enter an order granting petitioner defendant's motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs were driving their automobile following their daughters who were riding in defendant's vehicle preceding them along a winding road. The plaintiffs rounded a curve in the road and saw the wreckage of the vehicle in which their daughters had been riding against a telephone pole. Their daughters were dead or dying. Plaintiffs did not see or hear the accident but it could not have taken place more than a few moments before they arrived on the scene. The father testified that he reached the wreckage of the car "before the dust had settled." ( Id., at pp. 508-509.) The court held that since plaintiffs did not see, hear or otherwise sensorially perceive the injury-producing event there could be no recovery, the Dillon v. Legg (1968) requirement of a direct emotional impact upon the plaintiffs from sensory contemporaneous observance of the accident not having been met. ( Id., at p. 512.)