Boyce v. Greeley Square Hotel Co.

• Decision Date: 24 February 1920
• Citation: 126 N.E. 647,228 N.Y. 106
• Parties: BOYCE v. GREELEY SQUARE HOTEL CO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

228 N.Y. 106

126 N.E. 647

BOYCE

v.GREELEY SQUARE HOTEL CO.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 24, 1920.

Action by Mary S. Boyce against the Greeley Square Hotel Company. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (181 App. Div. 61,168 N. Y. Supp. 191) affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Kenneth C. Kirtland, of New York City, for appellant.

D. Cady Herrick, of New York City, for respondent.

COLLIN, J.

The action is to recover the damages resulting to the plaintiff by reason of the breach by the defendant (a domestic corporation) of its obligations to her as a guest at its hotel. The breach consisted of the unjustifiable and forcible entrance of defendant's servant, under conditions adapted to distress and shock her, into the room assigned to and occupied by her and the address to her there of vile, insulting, and abusive language and the arrest there and removal of her husband. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and the consequent judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division. The defendant urges upon us as errors compelling reversal rulings of the trial justice.

Upon the trial the plaintiff introduced as a part of her case testimony descriptive of the change in her physical condition involving bodily suffering arising immediately after the wrongful acts of the defendant. The testimony tended to prove that physical weakness and pains and a loss of appetite and sleep immediately ensued. The defendant objected and duly excepted to the introduction of the testimony upon the grounds, which it puts forward here, that the defendant was liable only for such injury to her feelings and such humiliation as she may have suffered, and testimony tending to prove accompanying or consequent physical pain or illness was incompetent and irrelevant. It excepted also to the parts of the charge to the jury which permitted them to award compensatorydamages for physical pain or illness and to the refusal of the trial justice of the requests of the defendant as follows:

‘I further ask your honor to charge, if this jury should find that the defendant is at all liable to the plaintiff in this case, then the measure of defendant's liability, if any, will be purely compensatory and not punitive, that plaintiff's right to recover is confined to such injury to her feelings and to such personal humiliation as she may have suffered and to nothing else. The Court: I would not charge quite in that form, because there has been here evidence of physical pain, and your request does not embrace that. Mr. Kirtland (defendant's counsel): I except, if your honor please. The Court: If you put in physical pain as well, then I will charge as requested. Mr. Kirtland: I further ask your honor to charge any other injury except injury to her feelings and such personal humiliation as she may have suffered should be enforced in another action. The Court: I decline to so charge. Mr. Kirtland: Exception.’

[1] The defendant does not question, under the facts of this case, the conclusions: The acts of the servant were violative of its obligation to refrain and to use reasonable care that its servant refrained from unreasonably interfering with the privacy of the plaintiff in the room assigned to her and from abusing or insulting her or indulging in any conduct or speech that might necessarily bring upon her physical discomfort or distress of mind. De Wolf v. Ford, 193 N. Y. 397, 86 N. E. 527,21 L. R. A. (N. S.) 860, 127 Am. St. Rep. 969;Lehnen v. Hines, 88 Kan. 58, 127 Pac. 612,42 L. R. A. (N. S.) 830;Florence Hotel Co. v. Bumpas, 194 Ala. 69, 69 South. 566, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 252;Clancy v. Barker, 131 Fed. 161, 66 C. C. A. 469, 69 L. R. A. 653. The defendant is liable for the acts of the servant. The rule of respondeat superior is applicable. A master is civilly liable for all acts done by his servant in the prosecution of the business of the master intrusted to him. The plaintiff is entitled to a sum which shall compensate her for her damages caused by the unlawful acts.

The defendant clings to the theory adopted by it at the trial and stated in the requests to charge we have quoted. Its inspiration and authority are the declaration in De Wolf v. Ford, 193 N. Y. 397, 406,86 N. E. 527, 531 (21 L. R. A. [N. S.] 860, 127 Am. St. Rep. 969):

‘The measure of liability, if any, will be purely compensatory and not punitive; the plaintiff's right to recover being confined to such injury to her feelings and such personal humiliation as she may have suffered. Gillespie v. Brooklyn Heights R. R. Co., 178 N. Y. 347 [70 N. E. 857, 66 L. R. A. 618, 102 Am. St. Rep. 503]. That is the extent to which the defendant's liability may fairly be said to spring from their breach of duty. Any remedy beyond that which the plaintiff may seek to assert must be invoked in a different form of action. The gravamen of the action at bar is not the alleged slanderous defamation of the plaintiff, but the defendants' breach of the duty which it owed to the plaintiff and the injury which was directly caused thereby.’

The declaration, of course, related to the facts of the case in which it was made and which was being decided. In the De Wolf Case no evidence was taken, inasmuch as the trial justice at the opening of the trial dismissed the complaint upon the pleadings. There was neither allegation nor proof of physical injury. The Appellate Division affirmed the judgment of the trial court upon the ground that the gravamen of the action was the slandering of the plaintiff. De Wolf v. Ford, 119 App. Div. 808,104 N. Y. Supp. 876. Our declaration was commensurate with the claim of the plaintiff as pleaded, and a purpose of it was to exclude upon the new trial granted the awarding of exemplary damages or damages for the injury to the character of the plaintiff.

[2][3][4][5] In the instant case the plaintiff asserted the injury of bodily pain. It is not necessary to determine with exact discrimination and accuracy whether the right of action in the case at bar is based upon a violation of a contract between the parties created through implication of the law or upon the infraction of an obligation or duty imposed by the law upon the defendant. The plaintiff was entitled to recover, upon the evidence in her behalf, upon the theory of a tort or a breach of contract by the defendant. Gillespie v. Brooklyn Heights R. R. Co., 178 N. Y. 347, 70 N. E. 857, 66 L. R. A. 618, 102 Am. St. Rep. 503. Frequently a given state of facts will sustain either theory. Rich v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co., 87 N. Y. 382, 390;Busch v. Interborough R. T. Co., 187 N. Y. 388, 80 N. E. 197,10 Ann. Cas. 460. As a general rule, mental suffering resulting from a breach of contract is not a subject of compensation. The rule does not obtain, however, as between a common carrier or an innkeeper and an insulted and abused passenger or guest, or the proprietor of a public resort and a patron publicly ejected. Aaron v. Ward, 203 N. Y. 351, 96 N. E. 736,38 L. R. A. (N. S.) 204. In the case ...