Spearman v. McCrary

• Decision Date: 18 April 1912
• Citation: 4 Ala.App. 473,58 So. 927
• Parties: SPEARMAN v. MCCRARY.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

58 So. 927

4 Ala.App. 473

SPEARMAN v. MCCRARY.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

April 18, 1912

Rehearing Denied May 4, 1912.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Walker County; J. J. Curtis, Judge.

Action by Annie McCrary against L. C. Spearman. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

L. D. Gray, of Jasper, for appellant.

Allen &amp Bell, of Birmingham, and James J. Ray, of Jasper, for appellee.

WALKER, P.J.

The injuries complained of were attributed by the averments of the several counts of the complaint to the fright or shock of the plaintiff (the appellee here) caused by the wrongful conduct of the defendant in his operation of an automobile on a public highway. Just before the occurrence complained of the plaintiff and her husband had alighted from a buggy drawn by a mule, in which they were traveling with their four children. The averments of several of the counts show that the defendant's conduct in causing the mule to run away with the buggy containing two of the plaintiff's small children so frightened and unnerved her that she fainted and swooned, was made sick and subjected to physical suffering as well as to mental distress and annoyance. It is urged in the argument of the counsel for the appellant that the demurrers to the complaint and the several counts thereof should have been sustained on the grounds suggesting their failure to show such an actual injury to the plaintiff's person, reputation, or estate as to furnish a legal support for a claim of damages.

The proposition contended for is that, if the plaintiff suffered no physical injury otherwise than in consequence of the fright or shock to which she was subjected, she has no legal cause of action, no matter how actual or serious may have been the physical ills so entailed upon her. Unquestionably there are rulings in other jurisdictions which fully support this proposition. See note to case of Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Ry. Co. v. Hayter, 93 Tex. 239, 54 S.W. 944, 47 L. R. A. 325, 77 Am. St. Rep. 856, 862. The authorities on the subject are in irreconcilable conflict. 1 Cooley on Torts (3d Ed.) 96. So far as we are advised, the question thus presented has not been authoritatively passed on in this state.

It is not to be doubted that the averments of the complaint show that the conduct of the defendant constituted a breach of duty owing to the plaintiff as a traveler on a public highway. Plainly it was a part of the purpose of the statutory regulations as to the speed of automobiles on public roads and as to their being stopped, upon signal, in certain situations (Code, §§ 6322-6326), to prevent the use of such machines as means of transportation on the public highways from unnecessarily interfering with the rights of other travelers to use such highways in other ways at the same time with safety and without avoidable alarms. The objection urged to the sufficiency of the complaint is based, not upon a claim that it fails to aver a breach by the defendant of a duty owing by him to the plaintiff, but upon the claim that it fails to show that the plaintiff sustained any such damage as is by law required to concur with the wrong complained of to give her a right of action. In this connection, reference is made to the rule prevailing in this state that damages for mental suffering alone, when unaccompanied by any injury to person, reputation, health, or estate, are not recoverable. Blount v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 126 Ala. 105, 27 So. 779. Rulings to that effect are not applicable in the present case, as the complaint here pointedly avers that, as a proximate result of the wrong complained of, the plaintiff was subjected to physical as well as mental suffering. If the complaint is subject to the objection urged, it is not because it fails to show that the plaintiff suffered such injury as the law allows damages for when wrongfully caused, but because the mode of its infliction is one which the law does not permit to be recognized unless accompanied by injury otherwise caused. The objection comes to this: That the plaintiff cannot maintain a claim to damages for the physical injury complained of because of the manner in which the averments of her complaint show that she sustained that injury. Certainly the general rule is that a physical hurt resulting from the negligence or wrongful conduct of another gives a right of action. The claim in effect is that this rule is subject to such a limitation or exception as to render it inapplicable when there is no injury except that which is traceable to fright or terror caused by the wrongful conduct complained of. The existence of such a limitation or exception has been recognized by courts whose views are entitled to such weight that we might well hesitate to decline to follow their rulings, though not satisfied with the reasons advanced in support of them, if we did not find that other courts, to whose expositions also we are warranted in looking for guidance in such a matter, had reached a different conclusion, on considerations which seem to us to be appropriate and controlling. A collection of conflicting decisions on the question is found in 1 Cooley on Torts (3d Ed.) 96.

When a complaint shows the concurrence of the two things ordinarily regarded as sufficient to give rise to a right of action, namely, a wrong or breach of duty owing to the plaintiff, and that thereby he sustained such an injury as the law allows to be compensated in damages, certainly a suggestion that cognizance should not be taken of the injury complained of, merely because of the manner of its infliction, is not to be lightly adopted in the absence of some definite reason which the law deems good and sufficient to support such a conclusion. Courts which hold that no recovery can be allowed for physical suffering occasioned by fright or terror resulting from the commission of a tort do not agree in the reasons advanced to support such rulings. Some base their conclusion to this effect on the ground that the defendant's act cannot be regarded as the proximate cause of the physical injury complained of, or that the damages claimed are too remote and speculative to be entitled to recognition. Others seem to be most influenced by the consideration that the recognition of such a right of recovery would open the door to imaginary and fictitious claims. Braun v. Craven, 175 Ill. 401, 51 N.E. 657, 42 L. R. A. 199; Morse v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 117 Ky. 11, 77 S.W. 361; Mitchell v. Rochester Ry. Co., 151 N.Y. 107, 45 N.E. 354, 34 L. R. A. 781, 56 Am. St. Rep. 604; Spade v. Lynn & B. R. Co., 168 Mass. 285, 47 N.E. 88, 38 L. R. A. 512, 60 Am. St. Rep. 393; Huston v. Freemansburg Borough, 212 Pa. 548, 61 A. 1022, 3 L. R. A. (N. S.) 49.

Unless we are warranted in saying that we can take judicial cognizance of it as a matter of common knowledge that real bodily harm cannot, without the intervention of some other independent proximate cause, result from frightening or putting one in terror, we may well refuse to assert it as a legal proposition that fright or terror may not be recognized as a proximate cause of a physical injury, because of not being convinced that the announcement of such a proposition would not in effect involve a misstatement of fact. We must plead ignorance of the existence of any such physical or natural law.

We do not think that we would be at all justified in affirming that physical injury may not follow a shock caused alone by fright, though the incident occasioning the fright involved no contact with or touching of the person of the victim of the injury. And we know of no legal reason for denying that any agency is the proximate cause of a given result when it is as a matter of fact. In view of the ruling made in the case of Engel v. Simmons, 148 Ala. 92, 41 So. 1023 7 L. R. A. (N. S.) 96, 121 Am. St. Rep. 59, 12 Ann. Cas. 740, this is enough, perhaps more than enough, to say in reference to a suggestion that the alleged frightening of the plaintiff cannot be regarded as the proximate cause of the physical injury complained of, when the averments of her complaint show that such is the fact. That was a case of a trespass upon the plaintiff's home. The plaintiff there had a right of action because of the trespass, and the question was as to her right to recover damages for physical injury resulting from fright caused by the circumstances of the trespass. It was plainly held that there is no legal obstacle to prevent the recognition of fright or terror as the proximate cause of a physical injury, and that a claim to damages could be based upon such injury caused by...