Bowman v. Williams

• Decision Date: 21 March 1933
• Docket Number: 22.
• Citation: 165 A. 182,164 Md. 397
• Parties: BOWMAN ET AL. v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

165 A. 182

164 Md. 397

BOWMAN ET AL. v. WILLIAMS.

No. 22.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 21, 1933

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Samuel K. Dennis, Judge.

Action by William G. Williams against George G. Bowman and another individually and as copartners, trading as the George G Bowman Coal Company. From the judgment for plaintiff defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, PARKE and SLOAN, JJ.

William L. Marbury and Fendall Marbury, both of Baltimore (L. Wethered Barroll, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

Henry M. Siegel, of Baltimore (John A. Sherman, Jr., of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

PARKE Judge.

William G. Williams, the plaintiff, lived with his wife and two sons of twelve and fourteen years in Baltimore city, at the southwestern corner of the intersection of Falls road, whose general direction was north and south, and Thirty-Eighth street, which ran east and west. His house fronted on Falls road and extended back on Thirty-Eighth street the depth of three rooms, the first being the parlor, the second, the dining room, and the third, the kitchen. The parlor had two windows on Falls road, but none on Thirty-Eighth street, and the dining room had two windows opening on Thirty-Eighth street and the kitchen one. Under these three communicating rooms was a basement.

The plaintiff had left his work on December 2, 1929, because of the rain and sleet, and had returned to his home. About half past one in the afternoon the wife was in the kitchen, the two boys in the basement, and the plaintiff was standing at the dining room window which was nearer to the front of the house, looking out, when he saw a large truck, loaded with coal, without chains on its wheels, coming from the east down the steep and icy hill on Thirty-Eighth street. The truck was driven by the servants of the defendant, and, gathering speed, it got out of control, dashed across Falls road, struck the north curb of Thirty-Eighth street, turned sharply to the left, and then ran across the street, over its southern curb and the sidewalk, and crashed into the stone foundation of the side of the house; thrust itself into the basement under where the plaintiff was standing, and remained there embedded in the side of the house.

The plaintiff did not sustain any physical impact; nor did the violent jar to the house cause him to fall, although he experienced the tremor imparted to the house. The fright of the plaintiff and his alarm for the safety of his two young sons occasioned by this accident were, however, such a shock to his nervous system that he fell to the floor of the dining room immediately after the impact of the truck with the fabric of the house, and was carried into the kitchen in weak and hysterical condition. The doctor was sent for, and the plaintiff remained in bed for two weeks under regular medical treatment. From a state of normal health, the plaintiff immediately became and continued quite weak and nervous, as was manifested to his family physician and an expert consultant in nervous disorders, by tangible evidence not susceptible of simulation, and by the absence of any physical reason for his condition. He was unable to work for six months, and after that period the testimony is that his condition gradually improved and is now about normal.

The action is to recover damages for these injuries, and the plaintiff's testimony tends to support the facts here stated. The defendants are the owners of the truck and their agents were operating it when the wrong was committed. The sole defense made went to the right of action on the plaintiff's testimony; and the witnesses produced by the defendants were only to contradict the plaintiff's testimony relative to the state of his health before the occurrence of the accident. No explanation of why the truck ran into the house was attempted by the defendants. The judgment was for the plaintiff, and the defendants have appealed. The four exceptions to the rulings of the court on the admission of testimony are not mentioned in the brief of the defendants. The court has considered these exceptions, which relate either to collateral matters or the form of questions put to an expert witness, and found no error presented. Lee v. Tinges, 7 Md. 215, 236, 237; Grill v. O'Dell, 113 Md. 625, 640, 77 A. 984; Gordon v. Opalecky, 152 Md. 536, 548, 137 A. 299. The fifth and last exception is to the action of the trial court on the prayers. The defendants contend that there was error in the refusal to grant the first and fifth prayers of the defendants, and in the submission to the jury of the prayer written by the court.

The defendants' first and fifth prayers present the theory that there can be no recovery for physical injuries resulting from fright caused by a wrongdoer unless the fright was for the injured party's own safety. The first prayer is founded upon the hypothesis that the evidence is undisputed that the fright did not originate in the fear of the plaintiff for his own safety, and therefore an instructed verdict for the defendants was asked. The fifth prayer, however, proceeds upon the alternative assumption that the testimony is susceptible of either inference, and denies a recovery in the event that the jury should find that the fright of the plaintiff was not produced for his own safety but for that of his children.

The theory of the defendants confounds the effect of a breach of duty with the breach. The master has the right to drive the truck upon the highway, but, in the exercise of this right the master owes a duty to the other users of the highway, and the occupants of the contiguous premises, so to operate the truck that an injury to the person or property rights of the other users of the highway and of the occupants of the contiguous premises will not be inflicted by the failure of the master to operate the truck with reasonable care and caution under the circumstances. 1 Beven on Negligence (4th Ed.) 62, n. c. As is succinctly expressed in Bohlen's Studies in the Law of Torts, 265: "* * * No recovery is allowed for mere fright because fright is not of itself such an injury as must be shown to maintain an action for negligence and * * * where physical injury is shown to have resulted, the plaintiff has proved an injury sufficient to sustain the action, the only question being whether or not the injury is the legal consequence of the negligence which caused the fright." Id., 266, 270, 280. So the negligent, but not willful, driving of the truck from the public highway through the wall of the house in which the plaintiff lived was the breach of duty which in the user of the highway the masters owed the plaintiff. Bohlen's Studies in the Law of Torts, 259-264, 285. With respect to the present inquiry, the primary effect of this wrongful act upon the personality of the plaintiff was the fright it caused him, since his person was untouched, although the possession under his demise was invaded. In fright a man's whole being reacts. The shock to his nervous system is reflected in instinctive excitement and intensive action of the muscles and organs of the body, and so it is clear that the mental state has a corresponding physical accompaniment, although there has been no impact suffered. "The fear's as bad as falling." Nor does the cause of the fear afford any standard of measurement of its consequences. When fear exists, the...