Crawson v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

• Decision Date: 07 October 1891
• Parties: CRAWSON v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas

47 F. 544

CRAWSON v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Arkansas.

October 7, 1891

Syllabus by the Court

The party receiving a telegraphic message, the delivery of the same having been negligently delayed by the agents of the company, cannot recover for mental suffering alone, when unaccompanied with other injuries.

To warrant the consideration of mental suffering as an element of damages there must be such gross negligence on the part of the agents of the company as to indicate a wanton or malicious purpose in failing to transmit and deliver the message. To warrant the consideration of mental suffering in fixing the amount of damages, the mental suffering must be an element of physical pain, or the natural and proximate result of some physical injury.

F. E Willey, for plaintiff.

Clendening Mechem & Youmans, for defendant.

PARKER J.

The plaintiff, as the receiver of a telegraphic message, brings suit for the recovery of damages, and he alleges in his complaint that he lives in the corporate limits of the town of Van Buren, within three-quarters of a mile of the office of defendant. That defendant is doing a general telegraph business in this state, such as receiving, transmitting, and delivering telegrams from and to public and private persons for pay. The said company has an office in Van Buren; also at Salisaw, in the Cherokee Nation, Indian country. That on the 20th of April, 1891, one H. O. Meadows employed and paid the defendant to send a telegram of the following import 'April 20, 1891. SALISAW, I.T. To robert Crawson, Van Buren: Come on this evening's train. Ma wants to see you. H.O.M.'-- TO the plaintiff, at Van Buren, Ark. That the same was for the benefit of plaintiff. That defendant received pay for transmitting said telegram. That the defendant refused to deliver the said message to the plaintiff without any good or lawful excuse whatever, and to the great injury and mental suffering of plaintiff. That defendant refused and failed to deliver said telegram in proper time, because of willful carelessness, wrong, and refusal. That the plaintiff's mother-in-law was at Salisaw, very sick, and supposed to be dying. That she, wanting her children near her at the time of her death, had the dispatch sent to plaintiff. By reason of the defendant's failure to deliver the dispatch to plaintiff, he was prevented, for the space of 24 hours, from going to the bedside of his mother-in-law, and for that reason was compelled to undergo and suffer disappointment, and great anguish and uneasiness of mind. That defendant's agent knew plaintiff's place of abode, and there was ample time to deliver him the dispatch, so he could go on the next train to Salisaw, but defendant's agent failed to do so.

Damages if actual, must flow directly and naturally from the breach of contract, and they must be certain, both in their nature, and in respect to the cause from which they proceed. 3 Suth.Dam. 303. The nature of the damages, and the cause from which they proceed, must be alleged with certainty in the complaint. Under this rule, the only cause from which damages can proceed in this action is mental suffering, because this is the only source of damages that is set out with sufficient certainty. True, in one part of the complaint it is alleged that defendant's failure was to the great injury and mental suffering of plaintiff; yet the pleader alleges no specific fact which shows any injury aside from his mental suffering. Then the only question for the court is, can the plaintiff recover for...