Judge Dismisses Part of Stage Hypnosis Injury Case

Chris Cady

A California judge has pruned part of a negligence case against a stage hypnotist who allegedly failed to bring a volunteer out of the hypnotic state, causing him severe psychological injury.

Both the volunteer, Louis Johnson, and his mother sued hypnotist Chris Cady after he performed for seniors at a northern California high school in May 2006. There is no precedent in the U.S. for a successful psychological injury claim against a stage hypnotist.

Ruling on defense demurrers, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Judith S. Craddick did not address whether Cady and his employer, Clowns of the U.S., owed Johnson a duty of care. But she dismissed the negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims of Johnson's mother without leave to amend.

“The wrongful conduct at issue in these causes of action is directed only at Louis Johnson,” Craddick explained in her order. “No special relationship is pled between Defendants and Leah Johnson.”

Craddick gave Leah Johnson leave to amend a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim based on bystander liability. Such claims are usually only actionable when the parent is “present at the scene” and “contemporaneously aware” of the injury to the child.

Louis Johnson was one of several Hercules High School students who volunteered to be hypnotized by Cady at a Senior Breakfast. While allegedly still in a hypnotic trance, he “proceeded to run out of the building, jump two flights of stairs and continued running through the campus in an incoherent state.”

Six police officers were required to handcuff him and strap him onto a gurney for the ride to the hospital, where a psychiatrist “'reversed' the effects of the hypnosis and brought Louis Johnson out of the hypnotic state,” the complaint said.

Separately, Craddick ruled that Leah Johnson has no standing as a parent to sue the West Contra Costa Unified School District for vicarious liability and negligent hiring and supervision.

“The only claims for which Leah has standing are those in which she alleges her own emotional injuries as either direct victim of the School District's wrongful conduct or as a bystander to her son's injuries,” the order said.

Demurrers to Louis Johnson's intentional infliction claims were sustained with leave to amend.

UPDATE

After a mediation session, the parties reached an agreement and dismissed the case Aug. 8, 2008.