Case ID: ad_102/html/0275-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Willard Bartlett, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elsie Lofink, an Infant, by Conrad Lofink, her Guardian ad Litem, Respondent, v. Interborough Rapid Transit Company, Appellant.
    
      Fright as a basis for damages in an action for negligence.
    
    Where, in an action brought to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, a child four years of age, in consequence of a collision between two railroad trains operated by the defendant corporation, it appeared that the collision threw the plaintiff from her seat forward against the glass at the side of the car and then to the floor between the seats from which she was picked up crying and screaming by a fellow-passenger, and the medical evidence and the testimony in reference to the child’s exclamations indicative of bodily pain fully justified the inference that an abnormal nervous condition partly manifested by “ night terrors ” was produced in the plaintiff by the physical shock which she suffered in consequence of the collision, the Appellate Division considered that the injuries were not solely the effect of fright and that the plaintiff was entitled to recover for such injuries.
    Fright may properly be considered as an element of damages when it is associated with actual bodily injuries.
    Appeal by the defendant, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, from a judgment of the Municipal Court of the city of New York, borough of The Bronx, in favor of the plaintiff, entered on the 22d day of August, 1904, upon the decision of the court awarding the plaintiff $100 damages in an action for negligence.
    
      Sidney Smith [G. T. Goldthwaite with him on the brief], for the appellant.
    
      Herman Gottlieb, for the respondent.
   Willard Bartlett, J.:

The injuries, for which the Municipal Court has awarded damages to the infant plaintiff (a child four years of age) in the sum of $100, were sustained in a collision between two railroad trains of the defendant corporation running in the same direction.

The only ground upon which the judgment is attacked in this court is that such injuries were proven to be solely the effects of fright, and hence were not of such a character as to authorize the award of pecuniary damages. (See Mitchell v. Rochester Railway Co., 151 N. Y. 107.)

In the case cited there was no immediate personal injury — no physical impact or exercise of force upon the body of the plaintiff. In the case at bar the collision threw the plaintiff from her seat forward against the glass at the side of the car, and then to the floor between the seats, from which she was picked up crying and screaming by a fellow-passenger. The medical evidence and the testimony in reference to the child’s exclamations indicative of bodily pain fully justify the inference that an abnormal nervous condition, partly manifested by “ night terrors,” was produced in the plaintiff by the physical shock which she suffered in consequence of the collision ; and the right to recover for such injuries inflicted by the negligence of the defendant cannot seriously be questioned. Fright may properly be considered as an element of damage when it is associated with actual bodily injury. : (Jones v. Brooklyn Heights Railroad Co., 23 App. Div. 141.)

The judgment should be affirmed.

Jenks, Rich and Miller, JJ., concurred; Hooker, J., not voting.

Judgment of the Municipal Court affirmed, with costs.