What is the difference between negligent misrepresentation and negligent infliction of emotional distress?

8 We realize that in our discussion herein we have blurred the differences between negligent misrepresentation productive of emotional distress and the negligent infliction of emotional distress. Our treatment of the torts more or less in common is not the result of inadvertence. While definitionally they differ, in that the representational tort involves only communication while negligent infliction of distress can result from acts, the analysis of each in terms of permitting recovery of damage for emotional distress should be essentially the same. See, for instance, Allen v. Jones (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 207, 163 Cal.Rptr. 445, which examined recovery for emotional distress in terms of both fraud and infliction without distinguishing between the two causes of action. Where the misrepresentation arises from the unusual circumstance which permits emotional distress damage in negligent infliction cases (the insurance cases or the cases of foreseeability of peculiarly intense emotional distress, for instance) we would anticipate emotional distress damage would be recoverable to the same extent were the case characterized in terms of the negligent infliction of emotional injury. In most situations the facts probably could be characterized as either cause of action.