Court Opinion

ID: 9827933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:56:34.240114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:39.556710
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellee strongly insists that the facts of the case bring it within the case of Tel. Co. v. Cavin, supra, and not within the Row-ell Case, supra. The facts, as stated, show that the appellee was very much exercised and nervous at not being able to use the telephone beginning with the date of December 18, and she continued in that mental condition to the date of the death of her husband on December 26, at 6:10 a. m. But it was not until December 24 that any liability of appellant could be said to arise. The entire testimony is that it was “on December 24, 1923, at about 9:30 or 10 o’clock a. m.” that the telephone was delivered to appellant for repair and the special circumstances of its need disclosed to its employees. The mental anxiety originally created by the situation beginning on December 18 was merely continued or prolonged through appellant’s failure to repair the telephone on and after December 24. She testified:
“Not being able to get in communication with the doctor on short notice made me nervous. The fact that I could not get a doctor or doctors at the time 1 wanted them had an effect on my feelings and mind.”
Her mental condition was that way on December 18 and 20, and unchanged to December 26. And from December 24 to the death of her husband she was not without help. As Mrs. Frye, testified:
“I was at Mrs. Buckner’s when she wanted the doctor. Every time I telephoned for her for the doctor he came in pursuance of the request.”
This suit is based entirely on a special contract to repair a telephone, and legal liability for mental anguish, as an element of damages, is not established.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.