Court Unconvinced By Country Club Wife's Emotional Distress Claim
by
Joseph C. Maya on Apr. 17, 2017
Accident & Injury Accident & Injury Personal Injury Civil & Human Rights Discrimination
Summary: Blog post about a woman who filed a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress when she was denied membership to a country club from which her husband had his membership cancelled.
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In the case of McNamra v. Tournament Players Club of Connecticut, a husband and a wife appealed the judgment from Superior Court which granted a country club's motion for summary judgment on the couple’s claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress and the wife's claims alleging discrimination by the club, and discrimination in violation of Connecticut law.
The husband was a member of a golf county club but, after engaging in a verbal dispute at the club, his membership was cancelled. His wife later applied for membership in the club, but the club denied her application in writing, according to the couple, because, and only because, she was a woman who was married to a member who had been banned from the club. The couple then sued the club for negligent infliction of emotional distress and discrimination by a country club, gender discrimination, and marital status discrimination. The trial court granted the club summary judgment. On appeal, the court affirmed, finding that with respect to the claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress, there was no basis for a rational inference that the club should have known that by sending of the rejection letter to the wife it might cause emotional distress that could result in illness or bodily harm. The court then found that the wife's gender and marital status discrimination claims failed because the evidence showed that the denial of the wife's application was based on her choice of marital partner and had nothing to do with her gender or her marital status.
The court affirmed the judgment. “[The wife] testified that she would have been admitted had she been married to someone else because the club had ‘never refused’ an application by a woman” said the court. “It is clear, therefore, that the denial of her application was based on her status as [the husband’s] spouse, and had nothing to do with her gender.”
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Source: McNamara v. Tournament Players Club of Conn., Inc., 270 Conn. 179, 851 A.2d 1154, 2004 Conn. LEXIS 298 (Conn. 2004)