Alvey delivered the opinion of the Court:
This action was brought by the appellee against the appellants to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligenсe of the appellants, while the appellee was a passenger on a street car of one of the appellants, the Washington and Georgеtown Railroad Company. The accident occurred on the i6th,of April, 1893, in a collision between the street cars of the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Cоmpany and those of the Rock Creek Railway Company, at the intersection of Fourteenth and U streets, northwest — the train of the former company running on Fourteenth street, and that of the latter company on U street. Both companies are sued as negligent contributors to the accident.
The court below was entirely right in refusing to take the case from the jury; and it wаs also right in refusing to grant the third and fourth prayers offered by the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. And we perceive no sufficient ground for the assignment of error in those parts of the general charge to the jury, numbered one, two, three and four, respectively, and to which exceptions were taken by the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. We think there were facts and circumstances in evidence sufficient to justify such instructions, and that they were not founded merely upon аssumption, as contended by the defendants.
But in the instruction given at the instance of the plaintiff, and as explained in the general charge, as for what damages might be assessed, we think there was error. By the first prayer of the plaintiff, which was granted, the jury ' were instructed that if they found for the plaintiff, then, in estimating the damages, they had a right to take into consideration the evidence, if any, of the pain and suffering undergone by the plaintiff in consequence of her injuries. This was all right enough. But the court went farther, and instruсted the jury, “ that in addition to damages for the pain and suffering undergone by the plaintiff, they should also assess damages for any impairment of the plaintiff’s nervous system, which they might believe from the evidence she had incurred as a direct result of the nervous shock received by her on the occasion of the collision, provided they believed from the evidence she had received such nervous shock. But, in estimating such damages, the jury were not
Where a party has suffered physical injury, it seems to be well settled, that mental pain and suffering, attendant upon and as a natural incident of such bodily injury, may be considered as an element in estimating the damages-Wood’s Mayne on Damages, page 73, sec. 54, and the extended note of the American editor, where the American cases are collated and reviewed. But in this case the principle was carried much farther than that just stated, by the instruction оf the court. The jury were instructed that,in addition to damages for pain and suffering, they could award damages for any impairment of the plaintiff’s nervous system, if such nervous impairment was produced as a direct result of the nеrvous shock received by her on the occasion of the collision. Thus making the nervous shock and the consequences thereof, a separate and indеpendent ground for awarding damages. This is certainly a most in-” definite element to be considered by the jury, and one that is most difficult, if not quite impossible, to regulate by any reаsonable standard for assessing damages. What is meant by impairment of the nervous system, or a nervous shock ? The nervous system, even to the most learned, has been found difficult to define with certainty and clearness, though we knоw that its functions are complex and manifold. We may affirm of the nervous system, that one of its principal functions is to produce sensation ; that its ministration in the animal structure and life consists in part in rendering the mind cognizant of that which is taking place around it, and in enabling it to act upon the material world,
We are aware that there are some few cases to be found, and some text writers following those cases, in which the principle of the instruction to the court below is apparently sanctioned. But the great weight of authority is against it, and we cannot give our sanction to it.
There is another question raised by exception and assignment of error, and that is, as to certain remarks or reflections indulged in by the counsel for the plaintiff, in his closing argument to the jury, supposed tо be calculated to produce prejudice in the minds of the jurors adverse to the pefendants. This is a matter resting so entirely in the dis
For the reasons we have assigned, the judgment must be reversed, and a new trial awarded.
Judgment reversed, and a new trial awarded.