Wilkinson v. Downton

As a practical joke, the defendant told a married woman that her husband had broken both legs in an accident. She believed him and fell seriously ill from the shock. Wright J. held that the false statement, wilfully made, gave her a good cause of action.

Quick Revision

Parties

Wilkinson — plaintiff; a married woman (the wife of Thomas Wilkinson). She was told that her husband had been hurt.

Downton — defendant; the person who made the false statement to her as a practical joke.

Procedural History

1. The report is headed as a further consideration before Wright J. after trial with a jury.
2. The jury assessed the railway fares at 1s. 10½d. and the damages for the nervous shock at 100l.
3. The defendant contended that the action could not be supported for the damage caused by nervous shock.
4. The report bears the marginal date May 8 under the year 1897. Counsel: Warburton and A. N. Talbot for the plaintiff; Abinger for the defendant.
5. Solicitors: J. S. Waters for the plaintiff and G. E. Philbrick for the defendant.
6. The report records no appeal and no later step.

Facts

1. On 9 April 1896 the plaintiff's husband, Thomas Wilkinson, went to a race-meeting.
2. On the evening of the same day the defendant came to the plaintiff's house.
3. He told her that her husband, returning from the races in a wagonette with some friends, had met with an accident and had both his legs broken.
4. He said the husband was lying at The Elms public-house at Leytonstone.
5. He said the husband had asked the defendant to tell her to go at once with a cab and some pillows to fetch him home.
6. These statements were false. The defendant meant them to be believed, and the plaintiff believed them.
7. The report says the defendant seems to have regarded his act as a practical joke.
8. The statement gave her a violent shock to her nervous system. It caused vomiting and other more serious and permanent physical consequences. At one time it threatened her reason.
9. She suffered for weeks and was incapacitated. Her husband incurred expense for medical attendance.
10. These consequences were not the result of previous ill-health or weakness of constitution. There was no evidence of predisposition to nervous shock or any other idiosyncrasy.
11. On the faith of the statement she incurred a small expense for railway fares of persons whom she sent to Leytonstone to see after her husband.

Issues Raised

1. Is the railway-fares claim of 1s. 10½d. within the doctrine of Pasley v. Freeman, since the statement was a misrepresentation intended to be acted on to the plaintiff's damage?
2. Can the plaintiff recover the 100l. for her illness and suffering as damage caused by fraud, or on some other ground?
3. Was the defendant's act so plainly calculated to produce some effect of the kind produced that an intention to produce it should be imputed to him?
4. Was the effect too remote to be regarded in law as a consequence for which the defendant is answerable?
5. Do Victorian Railways Commissioners v. Coultas and Allsop v. Allsop stand in the way of recovery?

Arguments Contended

For the defendant (Downton)

1. Abinger appeared for the defendant. It was contended that the action could not be supported so far as damage caused by nervous shock was concerned.
2. The report records no authority cited for this argument in the statement of the contention. The Court itself later considers Victorian Railways Commissioners v. Coultas and Allsop v. Allsop as the two authorities supposed to lay down that illness through mental shock is too remote.

For the plaintiff (Wilkinson)

1. Warburton and A. N. Talbot appeared for the plaintiff. The report does not set out their argument as such.
2. Wright J. records that it was argued for her that she could recover the 100l. as damage caused by fraud. On that footing the case would be within the doctrine established by Pasley v. Freeman and Langridge v. Levy.

Court's Reasoning

Wright J.

1. Noted: The defendant, in what he seems to have regarded as a practical joke, told the plaintiff that her husband was badly injured in an accident.
2. Noted: The effect was a violent shock to her nervous system, with vomiting and more serious and permanent physical consequences. These were not due to previous ill-health, weakness of constitution, predisposition or idiosyncrasy.
3. Held: The claim for the railway fares of 1s. 10½d. is clearly within the decision in Pasley v. Freeman. The statement was a misrepresentation intended to be acted on to the plaintiff's damage.
4. Noted: The real question is the 100l., most of which compensates the plaintiff's illness and suffering.
5. Noted: It was argued that she can recover this as damage caused by fraud, within Pasley v. Freeman and Langridge v. Levy.
6. Noted: Wright J. is not sure that this would not be an extension of that doctrine. Its real ground is that a person who makes a false statement intended to be acted on must make good the damage naturally resulting from its being acted on.
7. Noted: Here there is no injuria (a wrong to a legal right) of that kind.
8. Held: The verdict may be supported on another ground. The defendant has, as Wright J. assumes for the moment, wilfully done an act calculated to cause physical harm to the plaintiff. That is, he has infringed her legal right to personal safety, and has in fact caused her physical harm.
9. Held: That proposition, without more, states a good cause of action, as no justification for the act is alleged.
10. Held: This wilful injuria is in law malicious (done with a wrongful intent). No malicious purpose to cause the harm, and no motive of spite, is imputed to the defendant.
11. Noted: It remains to consider whether the assumptions in the proposition are made out.
12. Noted: First question: was the act so plainly calculated to produce some effect of the kind produced that an intention to produce it ought to be imputed to the defendant? The effect was produced on a person proved to be in an ordinary state of health and mind. Wright J. thinks it was.
13. Why: It is difficult to imagine that such a statement, made suddenly and with apparent seriousness, could fail to produce grave effects on anyone but an exceptionally indifferent person. An intention to produce such an effect must be imputed.
14. Held: It is no answer in law that more harm was done than was anticipated. That is commonly the case with all wrongs.
15. Held: Second question: was the effect too remote (too far removed from the act) to be a consequence for which the defendant is answerable? Apart from authority, Wright J. gives the same answer on the same ground. It was not too remote.
16. Noted: The criterion may be the natural effect on reasonable persons, as the majority of the House of Lords thought in Lynch v. Knight. Or the possible infirmities of human nature may be recognised, as Lord Wensleydale thought. On either view the connection between cause and effect is sufficiently close and complete.
17. Noted: Two authorities are said to hold that illness from mental shock is too remote or unnatural a consequence of an injuria. This applies where damage is a necessary part of the cause of action.
18. Held: Victorian Railways Commissioners v. Coultas is not an authority on which this case ought to be decided.
19. Noted: In Coultas the Privy Council held that illness from shock caused by fright was too remote a consequence of a negligent (careless) act which caused the fright. No physical harm was immediately caused.
20. Why: The Court of Appeal in Pugh v. London, Brighton and South Coast Railway treated the decision as open to question.
21. Why: It is inconsistent with a decision of the Court of Appeal in Ireland in Bell v. Great Northern Railway Co. of Ireland. The Irish Exchequer Division refused to follow it. It has been disapproved in the Supreme Court of New York (Pollock on Torts, 4th ed. p. 47 (n)).
22. Why: It is not altogether in point. There was no element of wilful wrong in Coultas, and perhaps the illness was not so direct and natural a consequence of the defendant's conduct as in this case.
23. Noted: A more serious difficulty is Allsop v. Allsop, approved by the House of Lords in Lynch v. Knight. There Pollock C.B., Martin, Bramwell and Wilde BB. held that illness caused by a slanderous (spoken defamatory) imputation of unchastity to a married woman was not special damage sustaining an action for that slander.
24. Held: Neither reason for Allsop applies here, so it does not bar recovery. It appears to have been decided on two grounds. In the many slander actions there were no precedents for alleging illness as special damage. And it would be of evil consequence to allow it, since it might lead to an infinity of trivial or groundless actions.
25. Held: Neither reason applies to the present case.
26. Why: Such a rule could not be adopted as of general application without results that would be difficult or impossible to defend.
27. Noted: Illustration: a person in a precarious and dangerous condition is told falsely that his physician says he has but a day to live. If death ensued from the shock, Wright J. cannot doubt that it might be a case of criminal homicide. If a serious aggravation of illness ensued, damages might be recovered.
28. Noted: The present case is without precedent.
29. Noted: Jones v. Boyce, Wilkins v. Day and Harris v. Mobbs are cited in Beven on Negligence as inconsistent with Coultas. Wright J. explains them on a different ground. The damage that immediately resulted from the act of the passenger or of the horse was the result of a fright that made that act involuntary. The fright is itself the direct and immediate cause.
30. Noted: In Smith v. Johnson & Co. (decided "January last", unreported), Bruce J. and Wright J. held that a plaintiff who became ill from the shock of seeing another person killed by the defendant's negligence could not recover. She did not fear harm to herself. That was too remote a consequence of the negligence.
31. Noted: Wright J. calls Smith v. Johnson a very different case from the present one.

Authorities

• Pasley v. Freeman (1789) 3 T.R. 51: relied on. The railway-fares claim is clearly within it. Its doctrine is that a person who makes a false statement intended to be acted on must make good the damage naturally resulting.
• Langridge v. Levy (1837) 2 M. & W. 519: named with Pasley v. Freeman as the doctrine of damage caused by fraud. Wright J. doubts the 100l. claim fits within it without extending it.
• Lynch v. Knight (1861) 9 H.L.C. 577, at pp. 592, 596, 600: the House of Lords majority and Lord Wensleydale on the test of natural effect are mentioned. It also approved Allsop v. Allsop.
• Victorian Railways Commissioners v. Coultas (1888) 13 App. Cas. 222: Privy Council decision that illness from fright was too remote. Not followed as authority here. Editor's note: reversed on appeal in Mitchell v. R.R. Co., 151 N.Y. 107.
• Pugh v. London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Co. [1896] 2 Q.B. 248: Court of Appeal treated Coultas as open to question.
• Bell v. Great Northern Railway Co. of Ireland (1890) 26 L.R. Ir. 428: Irish Exchequer Division refused to follow Coultas.
• Allsop v. Allsop (1860) 5 H. & N. 534: illness from a slander of unchastity was not special damage. Distinguished on its two grounds.
• Jones v. Boyce (1816) 1 Stark. 493; Wilkins v. Day (1883) 12 Q.B.D. 110; Harris v. Mobbs (1878) 3 Ex. D. 268: cited in Beven on Negligence as inconsistent with Coultas. Explained on the ground that fright was the direct cause.
• Smith v. Johnson & Co. (unreported, January 1897): a plaintiff made ill by seeing another killed could not recover. Distinguished as very different.
• Textbooks named: Pollock on Torts, 4th ed. p. 47 (n); Beven on Negligence.
• No statute or article is mentioned.

Judgement

1. Judgment for the plaintiff for 100l. 1s. 10½d., made up of 100l. for the nervous shock and 1s. 10½d. for railway fares.
2. The report records no order on costs and no other direction.

Legal Principle / Ratio

A person who wilfully does an act calculated to cause physical harm to another, and in fact causes it, is liable if no justification is alleged. Intention to cause the effect is imputed from the act. That the harm was greater than expected is no answer.

Key holding: "That proposition without more appears to me to state a good cause of action, there being no justification alleged for the act."

• Ratio: a false statement calculated to shock, which causes physical illness, gives a cause of action where the effect is produced on a person in an ordinary state of health and mind.
• Commentary: appears to be obiter, the illustration of a person told falsely that he has a day to live, where death from shock might be criminal homicide.

Critical Analysis

Analysis based on the judgment text.

• Wright J. says the case is without precedent. The liability rests on his own proposition, not on a decided case.
• He assumes "for the moment" that the act was wilful. The report does not separately record a finding of intent. It imputes intention from the nature of the statement.
• The judgment does not define how serious the physical harm must be. Its facts record vomiting and other physical consequences that threatened the plaintiff's reason.
• Coultas is set aside partly because it was not a case of wilful wrong. The judgment does not say what would happen where fright is caused by negligence alone.
• Smith v. Johnson & Co. is called very different, but the judgment does not fully explain where the line lies between fear for oneself and shock at seeing another harmed.

Significance

• The case gives a claim for physical harm caused by words alone, where the statement was wilful and calculated to cause harm.
• Commentary: the judgment treats a deliberate act meant to cause shock differently from a negligent act that causes fright.
• Commentary: the judgment separates fright caused by wilful wrong from fright caused by negligence, and sets aside the Coultas approach for wilful wrongs.

Exam-Important Points

• Rule: a wilful act calculated to cause physical harm, which does cause it, is actionable if there is no justification. Intention is imputed from the act.
• Trap: the plaintiff had no predisposition to nervous shock. The report records this. The Court does not say a predisposition would defeat the claim.
• Trap: Wright J. did not rest the 100l. on fraud or the Pasley v. Freeman doctrine. Only the 1s. 10½d. fares were within that doctrine.
• Trap: no malicious purpose or spite need be shown. The wilful injuria is in law malicious.
• Trap: Coultas (negligent fright) and Allsop (illness as special damage in slander) did not bar recovery. Each was distinguished.
• Result: judgment for the plaintiff for 100l. 1s. 10½d.
• Source note: the report has no numbered paragraphs.

Prepared from the full text of the judgment. The judgment has no numbered paragraphs. The citation is as printed in the report header.