151 Iowa 228 | Iowa | 1911
The following message was delivered to defendant’s agent at Stanwood, Iowa, at 4:13 o’clock in the morning of September 6, 1909: “Stanwood, Iowa, Sept. 6, 1909. To Jim Maley, care Kay Maley, Brookings, South Dakota. Come home at once, your wife is sick. Dr. Tilden.” The sender was a physician in attendance on the wife, and the sendee, plaintiff herein, was visiting his brother, Ray Maley, on a farm seven miles from Brookings. Mrs. Maley died at about twelve o’clock m. of the same day, and a telegram from plaintiff’s brother so stating was delivered with that first mentioned by telephone from Brookings at five o’clock in the afternoon. Had it been delivered promptly, the sendee would have received the first telegram in time to have taken a train at 11:15 o’clock in the forenoon, and he would have reached Stanwood the next morning at 6:30 o’clock. Because of the delay he was compelled to remain until the following day, and arrived in Stanwood twenty-four hours later than he would have arrived but for the defendant’s negligence. This did not prevent him from being present at the funeral, and, had the message been promptly delivered, he could not have reached home in time to have seen his wife alive.
That some courts have hesitated about doing this, and have erected barriers beyond which they have declared they will not go, has not deterred ' others from regarding mental anguish as an element of damages to be- taken into account whenever the natural consequence of the carrier’s wrong. Of this class is Foreman v. Western Union Tel. Co., 141 Iowa, 32. A son sent a telegram to his father announcing the death of "his wife, and he was held entitled to recovery for mental anguish suffered because of the father’s failure to attend the funeral as a consequence of the omission to deliver the telegram. In Western U. T. Co. v. Crocker, 135 Ala. 492 (33 South. 45, 59 L. R. A. 398), the plaintiff sent a message to his mother-in-law, saying that -his son, four years old, was worse, “Come on midnight train.” In consequence of the failure to deliver the telegram, the grandmother did not reach the home of plaintiff until after the -death ’of the child, and recovery for mental anguish suffered by the father was approved;
There are plenty of decisions in conflict with these; but, as noted by the Supreme Court of Arkansas in the Hollingsworth case, it is difficult to justify them on any logical basis. Thus, in Rowell v. W. U. Tel. Co., 75 Tex. 26 (12 S. W. 534), the court held that where omission or delay in' transmitting a message merely resulted in not allaying the anxiety for the condition: of a relative, there could be no recovery, 'and this was followed in Sparkman v. Tel. Co. 130 N. C. 447 (41 S. E. 881). See Western U. T. Co. v. Edmundson, 91 Tex. 206 (42 S. W. 549). As declining to extend the doctrine beyond the limits claimed by appellant, see Western U. T. Co. v. McCaul, 115 Tenn. 99 (90 S. W. 856); Robinson v. W. U. T. Co. (Ky.) 68 S. W. 656 (57 L. R. A. 611); Francis v. W. U. T. Co., 58 Minn. 252 (59 N. W. 1078, 25 L. R. A. 406, 49 Am. St. Rep. 507). See valuable note to W. U. T. Co. v. Hollingsworth, 11 L. R. A. (N. S.) 497, from which it appears there is much conflict in the decisions, and that those from Texas, even, are not in harmony. The cases are somewhat reviewed in W. U. T. Co. v. Shenep, 83 Ark. 476 (104 S. W. 154, 12 L. R. A. (N. S.) 886, 119 Am. St. Rep. 145), where the distinction between worry over imaginary ills and mental anguish as a natural consequence is clearly disclosed. As observed by the court: “Anguish over imaginary situations, worry, anguish over business matters, inconvenience, and annoyance over the ordinary affairs of life do not amount to mental anguish as a recoverable element of damages. Such element is limited to social and personal matters as contradistinguished from business transactions and contemplates suffering in mind over the real ills, sorrows, and griefs of life, and such suffering as would reasonably be contemplated to flow from the failure to acquaint the person with the tidings sought to be conveyed.” The limita
of opinion that not to exceed $300 should have been allowed, and if plaintiff cares to file a remittitur within thirty days from the filing of this opinion of all in excess of this amount, with interest, the judgment will be affirmed, with costs, taxed to appellant; otherwise reversed. Affirmed on condition. We are