Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Cecelia Ingraham had a daughter.  Her name was Tatiana.  In 2003, her then teen-aged daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.  After a brief period of remission, the cancer returned.  An opportunistic infection claimed Tatiana’s life in 2005.  Tatiana was an only child.

Cecelia Ingraham had a job.  It was in New Jersey.  She worked for Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical for 12 years as an administrative assistant in the marketing department.  At this job, she had a cubicle.  In this space, Cecelia kept mementos of her daughter not unlike any grieving parent might; pictures and a pair of ballet slippers.  On this job, like any job, not all discussions are about business matters.  In the course of meandering discussions, Cecelia sometimes talked about her deceased daughter not unlike any grieving parent might.  In the spectrum of trauma human beings can face, “what’s the worst trauma” is a zero sum game, but in that spectrum there are certainly forms of trauma that are uniquely painful due to their nature.  In that regard, for a parent to lose a child is a unique trauma.  It leaves an emotional scar that for most never fully goes away.

About a year and a half after Tatiana’s death, Carl DeStefanis, Director of Marketing, at the urging of Human Resources, had a discussion with Cecelia Ingraham “to convey complaints [Human Resources] had received about plaintiff’s conduct and interaction with co-workers. Several of those complaints were unrelated to Tatiana, but administrative staff in the department had also remarked about plaintiff’s tendency to speak to them about Tatiana’s tragic passing. The co-workers said they sympathized with plaintiff, but they felt uncomfortable and at a loss for ‘what else that we can say that we have not said already.’  The co-workers said they tended to avoid contact with plaintiff and to take work or questions elsewhere.” DeStefanis told Cecelia Ingraham that she needed to remove the pictures and ballet shoes of her deceased daughter from her cubicle and that she could “no longer speak of her daughter because she is dead” and should act as if her daughter “did not exist”.

Distraught, Cecelia left work that day and did not return.  Over the next few days, she began to have sudden heart palpitations that required surgery.  After the surgery and some recovery time, Cecelia Ingraham resigned her position at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical.  She then filed suit for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED) against Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, their parent company Johnson & Johnson, and Carl DeStefanis.  What happened next might be seen by some people as adding insult to injury.  Her case was dismissed.  But was it a result of bad law or a failure in basic empathy?

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