Block v. Pascucci

Citation149 A. 210,111 Conn. 58
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
Decision Date03 March 1930
PartiesBLOCK v. PASCUCCI ET AL.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas Court, Hartford County; Thomas J Molloy, Judge.

Action by Minnie Block against Guilia Pascucci and others to recover for damage to property and for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendants' negligence. Judgment was entered for plaintiff on trial to the court, and defendants appeal.

No error.

Damages resulting from physical injuries and mental anguish are recoverable, though injuries from physical contact are relatively insignificant.

DeLancey S. Pelgrift, of Hartford, for appellants.

Reuben Taylor, of Hartford, for appellee.

Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS JJ.

HINMAN, J.

The defendant Luigi Pascucci, operating an open automobile as the agent of his wife, Guilia, the owner, left it standing on Barbour street, in Hartford, at a point nearly opposite the plaintiff's store, and went into the apartment of a Mrs Trembley. While he was absent, a child of Mrs. Trembley, about three years old, was observed in a bending position in the front of the car, and soon thereafter the car backed across the street and crashed through a plate-glass window into the plaintiff's store, with disastrous consequences to the window, merchandise displayed therein, and adjacent stock and fixtures, and with personal effects upon the plaintiff as hereinafter stated. The child was seen to leave the automobile an instant before it struck the window. Barbour street is practically level at the point in question.

The trial court found that Pascucci, being in a hurry, left the car unattended and unoccupied, with the engine running, and without setting any brakes so as to prevent the car from moving or being moved, or locking it in any way, and that the child could not have manipulated the brakes, but may have interfered with some of the mechanism. The appellant seeks to eliminate this finding and to substitute one that the automobile was left with the engine shut off, and so that it could not have moved from its position in the highway of its own accord. There was direct testimony that the engine was running before the car started across the street, and this, with other evidence and the physical facts and proper inferences therefrom, especially considering the age and capabilities of the child, is sufficient to preclude the desired substitution, and to support the finding made. Upon this finding, the conclusion of negligence was warranted.

The appellant claims, further, that, even if the defendants be held negligent, such negligence was not the proximate cause of the plaintiff's damage. It is too clear to require discussion that negligence of the defendant driver in leaving the automobile unattended, with motor running, unbraked and unlocked, on a business street, was " a substantial factor in producing the damage complained of," notwithstanding possible intervention of an innocent act of the small child, which would have been prevented by reasonable care and precautions by the defendant driver. Such negligence, therefore, might reasonably be held a proximate cause of the incursion of the automobile into the plaintiff's store and of the resulting damages. Mahoney v. Beatman, 110 Conn. 184, 195, 147 A. 762; Lombardi v. Wallad, 98 Conn. 510, 120 A. 291.

The defendant, on the trial, made the claim of law that " The plaintiff was not entitled to recover for fright or nervous shock, in the absence of any contact with or injury to her person by the automobile of the defendant either directly or indirectly," and assigns as error the overruling of this claim. Where fright or other mental anguish or shock accompanies an injury to the person, recovery therefor, and for the physical consequences resulting, is allowed. Bushnell v. Bushnell, 103 Conn. 583, 594, 131 A. 432, 44 A.L.R. 785; St. Martin v. New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., 89 Conn. 405, 408, 94 A. 279, L.R.A. 1916D, 1035; Seger v. Barkhamsted, 22 Conn. 290, 298; 17 Corpus Juris, p. 838. Whether damages may be recovered for mental suffering due to fright or shock, unaccompanied by impact or other element of actual physical damage, or for physical results consequent upon fright only, has not been determined in this State.

This question is the subject of pronounced conflict of authority. 1 Sutherland on Damages (4th Ed.) § 22; 1 Burdick's Law of Torts (4th Ed.) § 51; 8 R. C. L. p. 525, § 80. Many jurisdictions, including Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, deny recovery, in such cases, although it is usually allowed for the physical consequences of fright, if there is also a contemporaneous physical injury, even though the latter be slight or comparatively insignificant. Rogers v. Williard, 144 Ark. 587, 223 S.W. 15, 11 A.L.R. 1119, 1128; Hanford v. Omaha & C. B. Street R. Co., 113 Neb. 423, 203 N.W. 643, 40 A.L.R. 983, 984. Another very considerable line of cases holds that there may be recovery for the physical effects of fright, although unaccompanied by physical injury; the States in which this doctrine is accepted including Rhode Island (Simone v. Rhode Island Co., 28 R.I. 186, 66 A. 202, 9 L.R.A. (N. S.) 740), New Hampshire ( Kenney v. Wong Len [1925] 81 N.H. 427, 128 A. 343), Nebraska, Maryland, Minnesota, Alabama, and Wisconsin. See 11 A.L.R. 1134; Hanford v. Omaha & C. B. Street R. Co., 113 Neb. 423, 203 N.W. 643, 40 A.L.R. 970, 985.

However, the situation presented by the facts found in the case before us does not require a determination as to which of these conflicting views should be adopted. The finding states that, while the defendants' automobile did not strike the plaintiff, upon hearing the crash of its entrance through the window of her store, and seeing its sudden appearance, she fainted and fell to the floor, and that she suffered pain in her hands and shoulders for some time thereafter, suffered from fright and nervous shock, was confined to her bed, and required medical attention and treatment, " all as a result of her fright and fall to the floor." Even in jurisdictions which deny recovery for the physical consequences of fright without contemporaneous physical injury, recovery has been allowed upon analogous states of fact.

Massachusetts is an early and consistent adherent of the doctrine of nonrecovery on account of fright alone, and Spade v. Lynn &...

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28 cases
  • Tyndall v. United States, Civ. A. No. 1294-1298.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 4th Circuit. Eastern District of North Carolina
    • 15 Enero 1969
    ...a taxi unattended with the engine running, Ney v. Yellow Cab Co., 2 Ill.2d 74, 117 N.E.2d 74, 51 A.L.R.2d 624 (1954); Block v. Pascucci, 111 Conn. 58, 149 A. 210 (1930); leaving the vehicle unlocked for a considerable length of time, Lee v. Van Buren & New York Bill Posting Co., 190 App.Div......
  • Robinson v. Pollard, 48618
    • United States
    • United States Court of Appeals (Georgia)
    • 30 Enero 1974
    ...the vehicle is thereafter set in motion by an intermeddler, and injury or damage to another results. 'Connecticut.-Block v. Pascucci (1930) 111 Conn. 58, 149 A. 210. 'District of Columbia.-Ross v. Hartman (1943) 78 App.D.C. 217, 139 F.2d 14, 158 A.L.R. 1370, cert. den. 321 U.S. 790, 88 L.Ed......
  • Orlo v. Conn. Co.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 22 Julio 1941
    ...we have had occasion to consider a recovery for the results of fright or nervous shock all fall within this statement. Block v. Pascucci, 111 Conn. 58, 62, 149 A. 210; Israel v. Ulrich, 114 Conn. 599, 601, 159 A. 634; Mitnick v. Whalen Brothers, Inc., 115 Conn. 650, 651, 163 A. 414. The wei......
  • Price v. Seidler
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Missouri
    • 14 Noviembre 1966
    ...hazard or danger see, generally: Myers v. Hauser, Mo.App., 61 S.W.2d 214; Moody v. Clark (Tex.Civ.App.), 266 S.W.2d 907; Block v. Pascucci, 111 Conn. 58, 149 A. 210; Storey v. Parker, La.App., 13 So.2d 88; Schattilly v. Yonker, 347 Mich. 660, 81 N.W.2d 343; Craddock v. Torrence Oil Co., 322......
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1 books & journal articles
  • Insurance Bad Faith Litigation, a Primer
    • United States
    • Connecticut Bar Association Connecticut Bar Journal No. 67, 1992
    • Invalid date
    ...and fair dealing cause of action was to enable insured to e compensated for more then just contract damages. 164. See Block v. Pascucei, 111 Conn. 58, 149 A. 210 (19W). 165. See Hiers v. Cohen, 31 Conn. Sup. 305, 329 A.2d 609 (Super. Cf. 1973). 166. See Markey v. Santangelo, 195 Conn. 76, 4......

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