Let us be perfectly plain. We find that outrageousness, by its nature, requires an
ad hoc determination. We do not suggest, however, that the assessment should be wholly unguided. The calculus must be rooted in the record, and it will often be informed by the various factors enumerated in the district court's test, the DEA's test,
see supra note 8, and similar tests produced by other sources.
At bottom, however, outrageousness is a concept, not a constant. What shocks the conscience in a given situation may be acceptable, though perhaps grim or unpleasant, under a different set of circumstances. Slashing a person's throat with a sharp knife may be an unrelievedly outrageous course of conduct if one thinks in terms of Jack the Ripper, helpless women, and the shadowy streets of London; the same behavior will be thoroughly acceptable, however, if the knife is a scalpel, the knife-wielder a skilled surgeon performing a
tracheotomy, the target a patient, and the venue an operating room. Although we recognize that formulaic tests offer administrative convenience and ease in application, we also recognize that neither life nor law can always be made convenient and easy. So here: there is simply no way to reduce the myriad combinations of potentially relevant circumstances to a neat list of weighted factors without losing too much in the translation.
Cf. Borden v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 935 F.2d 370, 380 (1st Cir.1991) (discussing “outrageousness” in the context of tort liability and concluding that “[t]here is no universal litmus test that a court can utilize to determine whether behavior is extreme and outrageous”).