164 Mulberry Street Corp. v. Columbia University

Francis Flynn, a Columbia University (defendant) professor, ran a study comparing how restaurants respond to food-poisoning complaints by sending letters to various restaurants (plaintiffs) falsely claiming he had suffered severe food poisoning. Columbia was unaware of the study and had no governing policies. The restaurants sued for misrepresentation, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and libel, describing the fiercely competitive New York restaurant industry, the reputational damage such accusations cause, and their own physical, psychological, and financial harm from investigating the supposed contamination. The trial court dismissed some claims but let the IIED claim proceed, and the defendants appealed.

Whether an intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim may be maintained where the defendant recklessly engaged in a campaign of harassment and the plaintiff's alternative theory of recovery for the same conduct was dismissed.