United Laundries Co. v. Bradford

• Decision Date: 06 December 1918
• Docket Number: 42.
• Parties: UNITED LAUNDRIES CO. et al. v. BRADFORD.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

105 A. 303

133 Md. 363

UNITED LAUNDRIES CO. et al. v. BRADFORD.

No. 42.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

December 6, 1918

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Henry Duffy, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Harry L. Bradford against the United Laundries Company and the Elite Laundry Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, BURKE, THOMAS, PATTISON URNER, and STOCKBRIDGE, JJ.

Joseph Addison and Forrest Bramble, both of Baltimore (Barton Wilmer & Stewart, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

James J. Lindsay, of Baltimore, for appellee.

URNER J.

The question of main importance in this case is whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the inference that the personal injuries sued for were permanent in their effects. The plaintiff was struck by a bale of hay, weighing about 240 pounds, which was thrown down from the third floor of a stable and storage building of the defendants, abutting upon the sidewalk along which the plaintiff was passing. It is not disputed that there was passing. It is not disputed that there was legally sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of the defendants' employés in the handling of the hay which caused the plaintiff's injury. While they testified that they gave ample warning that the hay was about to be dropped upon the sidewalk, the plaintiff's testimony was that he had no notice whatever of such an impending danger. A witness who saw the accident testified that the bale of hay fell directly on the plaintiff and knocked him into the street. After a brief period of unconsciousness the plaintiff was helped to a sitting position on the bale of hay, and as soon as a patrol wagon could be summoned he was taken to the University Hospital. He was there examined and attended by Dr. Joseph W. Holland, who testified that his apparent physical injuries were a slight laceration of the forehead, a bruised eye, and two broken teeth. An X-ray examination, he said, disclosed a linear fracture of the skull, extending several inches upward from the margin of the orbit of the right eye. There was "some muscular spasm in the lumbar region, indicating that he had some sprain to his back." "He had an injury to his spine." The principal symptoms were of an injury to the brain, to which Dr. Holland, in his testimony thus refers:

"The brain injury in this case was the result of the fracture and the violence which produced the fracture, and the condition which demanded our attention was not the fracture itself, but the injury to the brain."

As a consequence of such injury he "has presented the characteristic picture or symptoms of what we call traumatic neurasthenia; that is, a condition which follows and is the result of a shock to the nervous system." Upon the subject of the probable duration of the condition described we quote from the testimony of Dr. Holland as follows:

"Q. I ask you, from your treatment of him and your examination also this morning, your treatment of Mr. Bradford at the hospital during the time he was there and at home, and upon your examination this morning, can you give the court and jury your opinion in regard to how long he may suffer, as the effects of that injury? A. I cannot express an opinion about that definitely at all, because invariably the condition which follows a head injury, the period of time, I mean, which is necessary for this to clear up, is extremely variable. Q. Well, some of the symptoms would continue on forever in cases of that character, would they not, Doctor? A. Somtimes."

In the course of his cross-examination Dr. Holland testified that the plaintiff's nervous condition would improve as and when he "realizes that he can do things without any suffering," and thus acquires self-confidence. But he stated that the plaintiff has no control over the nervous trouble brought on by the accident. The trial at which this testimony was given occurred about 11 months after the accident, which happened in April, 1917. The plaintiff himself, testifying as to his injuries and their subsequent effects, said that during the 2 weeks he spent at the hospital he was flat on his back, with ice caps on his head for about 10 days, and suffering severe pains in his head and back. Since leaving the hospital, and up to the time of the trial, he said:

"I have frequent headaches; sometimes are more violent than others. The least little excitement, and I am pretty certain to have a violent headache. As a rule it abates very much when I retire at night. Some mornings it is gone; but I am just as likely to have one the next day as not, although there are sometimes possibly for a week that I won't have more than one; again, I will have two or three in a week."

The pains in the lower part of his back, he said, "have almost disappeared, although I notice them occasionally, but the pains up rather just a little below my shoulders are quite pronounced when I am on my feet very long at a time." Before the accident he was not subject to pains in his back or headaches. Prior to that time, also, he had slept very well; but since then he is often restless and unable to sleep. After leaving the hospital he went to his mother-in-law's, where he was confined to bed for 4 weeks, and afterwards allowed to sit up a short time each day until, in the course of a further period of 2 weeks, he could sit up for the entire day. Then he returned to his own...