Watson v. Dilts

• Decision Date: 10 April 1902
• Citation: 116 Iowa 249,89 N.W. 1068
• Parties: WATSON v. DILTS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

116 Iowa 249

89 N.W. 1068

WATSON

v.DILTS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 10, 1902.

Appeal from district court, Henry county; James D. Smyth, Judge.

Action to recover damages for physical disability, produced by fright. A demurrer to the petition was sustained, and judgment rendered for the defendant. The plaintiff appeals. Reversed.Palmer & Kopp and Watson & Weber, for appellant.

McCoid & Finley, for appellee.

SHERWIN, J.

The petition alleges that the plaintiff is a married woman, and that on the 9th day of February, 1900, she resided, with her husband and child, on a farm remote from the traveled highway; that in the nighttime of said day, at about the hour of 11 o'clock, and after she, her husband, and her child had gone to bed, the defendant wrongfully, surreptitiously, and stealthily entered her said home, and went upstairs to the second story thereof, and, as the plaintiff then believed, to commit a felony; that the identity of the defendant was not known to her at the time she heard him enter the house and go upstairs, and that she called to her husband to follow him, which he did; that in her apprehension for her own, her child's, and her husband's life, from what appeared to her a threatened danger, she followed her husband up to the room where the defendant was found, and where she found him and her husband in what appeared to her to be an encounter, and an assault upon her husband; that she became greatly terrified thereat, and was attacked with a violent nervous chill of such severity that her nervous system completely gave way, and she became prostrated, and was confined to her bed with threatened neurosis, or paralysis, and suffered great mental and physical pain for nearly six weeks, during all of which time she was confined to her bed, and unable to attend to her household duties. The demurrer to the petition is based on the ground that the damages claimed are too remote and speculative, and that the plaintiff seeks recovery for fright and injuries resulting therefrom without any physical injury to her which caused the fright. The petition alleges physical injuries resulting from the fright caused by the defendant, and the demurrer thereto raises the question whether recovery may be had for physical injuries so caused.

Many cases have been before the courts in which the question of a recovery for mental pain alone, and for physical disability produced by fright, unaccompanied by physical impact, have been decided; and the decisions on these questions are in conflict, though it is probably true that the numerical weight of authority denies the right of action. But the cases so holding are not in harmony as to the reasons given for denying the right of action; some of them hold that the injury is not the proximate result of the alleged negligent or wrongful act, while others refuse a recovery for the reason that it is practically impossible to satisfactorily administer any other rule and serve the purposes of justice. The latter rule is the one adopted in Massachusetts. Spade v. Railroad Co., 168 Mass. 285, 47 N. E. 88, 38 L. R. A. 512, 60 Am. St. Rep. 393. We shall not take the time to review the cases in detail which hold to the doctrine that no recovery can be had. A large majority of them are cases in which the simple charge of negligence was made, and in many of them no claim was made for physical disability resulting from the fright. A review of some of the cases will be found in Braun v. Craven, 175 Ill. 401, 51 N. E. 657, 42 L. R. A. 199. See, also, note in Ewing v. Railway Co. (Pa.) 14 L. R. A. 666 (s. c. 23 Atl. 340, 30 Am. St. Rep. 709). Our attention has not, however, been called to any case in which the facts averred are precisely parallel to the facts in this case, and in no case to which we have been cited, and in no case which our own investigation has discovered, have we found facts alleged which so strongly condemn the unlimited application of the rule contended for by the appellee as do the facts pleaded in the case at bar. This defendant, in the nighttime, stealthily and unbidden invaded the home of the plaintiff...