Seidenbach's, Inc. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 11 April 1961
• Docket Number: No. 38960,38960
• Citation: 361 P.2d 185,1961 OK 77
• Parties: , 1961 OK 77 SEIDENBACH'S, INC., Plaintiff in Error, v. LaWanda WILLIAMS, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 185

361 P.2d 185

88 A.L.R.2d 1360, 1961 OK 77

SEIDENBACH'S, INC., Plaintiff in Error, v. LaWanda WILLIAMS, Defendant in Error.

No. 38960.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

April 11, 1961.

Syllabus by the Court

1. In Oklahoma, alleged damages for mental anguish, embarrassment and humiliation, unaccompanied by, or connected with, physical injury or suffering, cannot be recovered on account of the negligent breach of a contract.

2. Where a woman sought $10,000 in alleged special damages for the above-mentioned types of mental distress, and/or unhappiness, in addition to certain expenses of her wedding in the sum of $716.61, on account of defendant's failure to deliver her wedding gown and veil in time for her wedding; and recovered a verdict and judgment for more than the $716.61; the case on appeal, would be remanded for a new trial on account of instructions authorizing recovery of the alleged special damages, in addition to the wedding expenses.

Appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County; Raymond Graham, Judge.

Action by a recently married woman, as plaintiff, against the defendant corporation owning and operating a department store, for alleged damages for breach of a contract to furnish a wedding gown and veil for her wedding. After judgment for plaintiff, defendant appealed. Reversed and remanded with directions.

Robert D. Hudson, Hudson, Hudson, Wheaton & Kyle, Tulsa, for plaintiff in error.

Burt, Seigel & Franklin, Tulsa, for defendant in error.

BLACKBIRD, Vice Chief Justice.

This action concerns a controversy arising out of the purchase of a wedding gown and veil. Defendant in error (hereinafter referred to as plaintiff) ordered them from plaintiff in error, owner and operator of a Tulsa department store (hereinafter referred to as defendant) in time for her scheduled wedding in that City. When defendant did not deliver them to the church (where plaintiff's wedding was to occur) within forty minutes after the ceremony was to start, it proceeded, with her wearing the suit provided for her honeymoon trip. The wedding gown, which had been completed at the defendant's store in ample time for delivery before the wedding, and various other items of clothing apparently forming parts of plaintiff's trousseau, had been charged to her at said store, but remained unpaid for, when she returned to Tulsa from her honeymoon trip, and indicated that she would still like to have the gown and veil.

After consultation between Mr. Seidenbach, defendant's chief executive, and Mrs. Wedel, the store's bridal clothing saleswoman, or 'bridal consultant', it was agreed that plaintiff should be given a credit of $94.35 on the gown and veil's combined original price of $163.20; and they were delivered to her.

Thereafter, when plaintiff instituted the present action against defendant, she alleged that defendant 'breached its duty' toward her in failing to deliver the 'gown and veil until over a week after the wedding occurred * * *', and sought recovery of various items of the wedding's expense, such as organist's fee, vocalist's fee, cost of the wedding invitations and pictures, etc., totaling $716.61, as damages. Further alleging that 'as a result of the wanton, negligent and willful acts' of defendant, her 'formal wedding was shattered and laid to ruin' from the absence of the gown and veil, causing her 'to suffer great mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment * * *', plaintiff sought, on that account, further damages in the sum of $10,000.

Defendant's answer was in the form of a general denial, and a specific denial that it had breached its contract with plaintiff. It alleged, in substance, that the reason the gown and veil were not delivered in time for the wedding was that plaintiff had not, a few days before the wedding, verified its date, as she had agreed with defendant's Mrs. Wedel to do.

In a cross petition following its answer, defendant sought recovery against plaintiff of the sum of $202.18, representing the total original cost of the clothing defendant had allegedly furnished plaintiff, less the hereinbefore mentioned discount of $94.35, which defendant alleged was given plaintiff as consideration for a compromise of the controversy.

At the beginning of the trial, plaintiff elected to prosecute her alleged cause of action on a breach of contract, rather than a tort, theory. At the close of plaintiff's evidence, defendant's demurrer thereto was overruled, as was its motion for a directed verdict, after all of the evidence had been introduced.

Upon submission of the cause to the jury, two separate verdicts were returned. One granted plaintiff recovery of $1,500 on her petition; the other granted defendant recovery of $202.18, on its cross petition. Thereafter, the trial court apparently subtracted the smaller verdict from the larger one, and rendered judgment for plaintiff in the amount of the difference of $1,297.81. After the overruling of its motion for a new trial, defendant perfected the present appeal.

For reversal, defendant has submitted three proposition, but as we have determined that the trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion for a new trial, and that, for this reason, the case must be reversed and remanded, it is necessary to deal only with its contention that, in Oklahoma, damages may not be recovered for mental anguish, humiliation, and embarrassment allegedly resulting from a breach of contract, where same 'was not produced by, or the result of, some physical injury and suffering * * *'. This contention, or proposition, apparently covers, or pertains to, both defendant's assignment of error in the overruling of its demurrer to plaintiff's evidence and motion for a directed verdict, and to its contention that the court erred in instructing the jury. (Since defendant introduced evidence of its own, after the overruling of its demurrer to plaintiff's evidence, said ruling is not a proper subject of consideration in this appeal. See Mulkey v. Morris, Okl., 313 P.2d 494, 499, citing Chickasha Cotton Oil Co. v. Hancock, Okl., 306 P.2d 330.

Consideration of the fact that the verdict, as well as the judgment, for plaintiff was for an amount larger than the total of the damages she claimed for items other than mental anguish, humiliation, and embarrassment, renders it certain that a substantial portion of her recovery was for these items. Moreover, she neither alleged nor proved that defendant's claimed breach of the contract, to deliver her said gown and veil, caused her any physical injury, or that her injured, vexed, or pertunbed feelings from such breach were caused, or connected with, or aggravated, or produced, any such injury or disability. In Nail v. McCullough & Lee, 88 Okl. 243, 212 P. 981, this court held:

'It is the settled law in this jurisdiction that mental anguish of itself cannot be treated as an independent ground of damages so as to enable a person to maintain an action for that injury alone.'

In the body of the opinion (212 P. at page 982), it was further said:

'It is true that there is a sharp conflict of authority on the question, but, in view of the careful consideration it has already received in this jurisdiction, we do not feel called upon to reexamine the cases.'

In Belt v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co., 10 Cir., 195 F.2d 241, 243, it was said:

'Oklahoma courts are committed to the rule that 'No recovery can be had for mental pain and anguish, which is not produced by, connected with, or the result of, some physical suffering or injury, to the person enduring the mental anguish.' St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Keiffer, 48 Okl. 434, 150 P. 1026. In other words, Oklahoma law does not compensate for mental anguish or disturbance alone--it must be a part of the physical suffering and inseparable therefrom, as where the mental anguish is superinduced by physical hunger pains. See Thompson v. Minnis, 201 Okl. 154, 202 P.2d 981.'

See also McCormick On Damages, sec. 145 'Mental Distress'. The statement plaintiff's counsel quote from Koons v. Shelburne Motor Co., 167 Okl. 634, 31 P.2d 573, 574, that: 'The authorities almost unanimously recognize exceptions to the rule that mental suffering is not, ordinarily, an element of damage arising from the breach of contract' constitutes no basis for upholding her recovery. This statement was a purely academic reference to decisions in other jurisdictions, and was in the nature of dictum. This court made it quite clear in its discussion in the early telegraph cases of Butner v. Western Union Tel. Co., 2 Okl. 234, 37 P. 1087 (decided before Statehood) cited in the Koons case, and Western Union Tel. Co. v. Choteau, 28 Okl. 664, 115 P. 879, 49 L.R.A.,N.S., 206, Ann.Cas.1912D, 824, that there is no basis in this jurisdiction for recognizing any such exception as to mental pain and suffering, not the result of, nor accompanied by, physical injury. During the course of our discussion in the latter case, we pointed out (115 P. at page 880) that, generally speaking, the courts of this Nation derive their rules and power of adjudication from but two sources, namely: The English Common Law, and our statutes. The authority relied upon the Page on the Law of Contracts--the text cited in the Koons case, supra--for following damages for mental distress caused by breach of a contract to furnish a trousseau, is Lewis v. Holmes, 109 La. 1030, 34 So. 66, 61 L.R.A. 274, which seems to be the leading case of the few of like result. As pointed out, however, in Graham v. Western Union Tel. Co., 109 La. 1069, 34 So. 91--decided less than one month before the Lewis Case--there is good reason for such holding in Louisiana, whose jurisprudence and statutes follow the French Napoleanic Code, rather than the English Common Law. Our adjudication of the trial court's error in this case constitutes no denial that one can validly recover special, in addition to actual, damages for breach of contract in Oklahoma. Here, the court's...