Lane v. KinderCare Learning Centers, Inc

In Lane v. KinderCare Learning Centers, Inc, 231 Mich App 689, 692-694; 588 NW2d 715 (1998), the Court found that if, at the time the contract was executed, it was foreseeable that "a breach of the contract would result in mental distress damages to plaintiff, which would extend beyond the mere 'annoyance and vexation' that normally accompanies the breach of a contract," then these damages are clearly within the contemplation of the contracting parties. The Court therefore reversed the trial court's grant of summary disposition in favor of the defendant child care company regarding the plaintiff's breach of contract claim where the defendant's employees locked the doors of the facility at 6:00 p.m. and inadvertently left the plaintiff's daughter sleeping inside, causing the plaintiff severe emotional distress. Id. at 692. In Lane, supra, the Court made the following observations in determining that a contract to care for one's child is a matter of mental concern and solicitude: The recovery of damages for the breach of a contract is limited to those damages that are a natural result of the breach or those that are contemplated by the parties at the time the contract was made. Therefore, it is generally held that damages for emotional distress cannot be recovered for the breach of a commercial contract. However, our Supreme Court has recognized that damages for emotional distress may be recovered for the breach of contract in cases that do not involve commercial or pecuniary contracts, but involve contracts of a personal nature. Stewart v. Rudner, 349 Mich 459, 469; 84 NW2d 816 (1957). The Supreme Court explained: "When we have a contract concerned not with trade and commerce but with life and death, not with profit but with elements of personality, not with pecuniary aggrandizement but with matters of mental concern and solicitude, then a breach of duty with respect to such contracts will inevitably and necessarily results in mental anguish, pain and suffering. In such cases the parties may reasonably be said to have contracted with reference to the payment of damages therefor in event of breach. Far from being outside the contemplation of the parties they are an integral and inseparable part of it. Id. at 471." Examples of personal contracts include a contract to perform a cesarean section; a contract for the care and burial of a dead body; a contract to care for the plaintiff's elderly mother and to notify the plaintiff in the event of the mother's illness; and a promise to marry.