GREEN v. SHOEMAKER & CO. 111 Md. 69, 73 Atl. 688. 1909. Action by Rebecca A. Green against T. A. Shoemaker & Co. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and new trial awarded. Argued before BOYD, C. J., and PEARCE, BRISCOE, SCHMUCKER, BURKE, THOMAS, and WORTHINGTON, JJ. The facts in this case were that the defendants were contractors engaged in extensive work on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which required the blasting of large quantities of rock by the means of explosives near the residence of the plaintiff. * PEARCE, J. The declaration contained four counts, and the first and second are substantially the same. They allege that at the time of the grievance complained of the plaintiff, as tenant, was in possession of three certain rooms in a house belonging to Mrs. Annie McIlvaney, in which said three rooms the plaintiff resided, and to the exclusive possession of which she was entitled; that the defendants from about April 14, 1906, to December, 1906, were engaged in blasting large quantities of rock near her said residence, and by means thereof caused large rocks and stones to be cast on the house in which she resided, and the lot of land appurtenant thereto, destroying doors, windows, sashes, and glass therein, breaking the roof and porches, and cracking the walls and ceilings of said house, and particularly of the three rooms occupied by the plaintiff, breaking the glass and china of the plaintiff and otherwise injuring her property, and wrongfully depriving her thus of the quiet and peaceable possession of said rooms as her dwelling. The plaintiff testified that the first blast was on April 14, 1906; that it knocked nearly half the plastering from the wall of the room she was in, and part of the ceiling. None of it then fell on her, though some fell on Mrs. McIlvaney's child. It seemed to lift the house up, and then let it fall. It broke every glass in the windows except one. It threw the table upside down. It broke two dozen jars belonging to the plaintiff in the cellar of the house. On April 24th a stone burst through the roof and ceiling and came down through plaintiff's bed, mattress, and spring, and broke the slats and rollers. It weighed twenty-two pounds. That blast tore the window sash out, broke some in two, and threw them across the room. They did not sleep in that bed for six weeks after that. This blasting kept up till the fall of 1906. They often had to leave their meals and run to the cellar, and were in terror all night of being killed. She had to sit up in a chair at night the best part of six weeks while they were blasting across the river. She said: "My nerves were completely broken down through fright, and I was not able to do my work. Before that time, I was in ordinary health, and never was nervous. Since then I have had no health at all. Dr. Miller attended me for this nervousness, and he came every day during the latter part of April, and after that every week or so until fall." Dr. Miller testified that he was her family physician before and after this blasting; that after April 14th plaintiff developed nervous prostration which he attributed to the shock of the blasting. George Green, plaintiff's husband, testified that he worked for defendants at that time; that there was constant blasting going on, and that in consequence his wife had become a nervous wreck; that she was 30 years of age, and before this blasting had always attended to all her household duties, but since then has been unable to do so. Upon the close of the plaintiff's testimony, the defendants moved to strike out all the evidence of the plaintiff's witnesses "bearing on the nervous condition and nervous shock to the plaintiff, and any physical injury resulting from such nervous shock, such testimony having been admitted subject to exception, because there is no evidence of any physical impact or corporal injury to the plaintiff." This motion was granted, and the first exception was taken to that ruling. The defendants then prayed an instruction "that, under the pleadings and evidence in the case, there is no evidence legally sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to recover, and their verdict must be for the defendants"; and the second exception was taken to the granting of that instruction. The defendants having filed only the general issue plea to all the counts of the amended declaration, there is no question arising as to the form of the pleadings, and there are only two questions which it is necessary to consider: (1) Can the plaintiff upon the evidence which was admitted recover damages for the interference with her quiet possession and enjoyment of the rooms occupied and rented by her? (2) Does a cause of action lie for physical injury resulting from fright and nervousness caused by the wrongful acts of the defendants? This brings us to the important question involved in the granting of the motion to strike out all the testimony bearing on the nervous shock to the plaintiff and physical injury resulting therefrom. There is a wide divergence of judicial opinion as to whether a cause of action will lie for actual physical injuries resulting from fright and nervous shock caused by the wrongful acts of another, and it may be considered as settled that mere fright, without any physical injury resulting therefrom, cannot form the basis of a cause of action. This is so, because mere fright is easily simulated, and because there is no practical standard for measuring the suffering occasioned thereby, or of testing the truth of the claims of the person as to the results of the fright. But when it is shown that a material physical injury has resulted from fright caused by a wrongful act, and especially, as in this case, from a constant repetition of wrongful acts, in their nature calculated to cause constant alarm and terror, it is difficult, if not impossible, to perceive any sound reason for denying a right of action in law for such physical injury. The grounds upon which those courts have proceeded which deny such right are twofold: "(1) That physical injury produced by mere fright caused by a wrongful act is not the proximate result of the act; and (2) that, upon the ground of expediency, the right should be denied because of the danger of opening the door to fictitious litigation, and the impossibility of estimating damages." Huston v. Freemansburg, 3 L. R. A. (N. S.) 50, Editor's note. As to the first of these grounds, this court has laid down in clear language the true doctrine upon this question in Balt. City Passenger Railway Co. v. Kemp, 61 Md. 80. In that case the court, speaking through Judge Alvey, said: "It is not simply because the relation of cause and effect may be somewhat involved in obscurity, and therefore difficult to trace, that the principle obtains that only the natural and proximate results of a wrongful act are to be regarded. It is only where there may be a more direct and immediate sufficient cause of the effect complained of that the more remote cause will not be charged with the effect. If a given effect can be directly traced to a particular cause as the natural and proximate effect, why should not such effect be regarded by the law, even though such cause may not always, and under all conditions of things, produce like results? It is the common observation of all that the effects of personal physical injuries depend much upon the peculiar conditions and tendencies of the person injured, and what may produce but slight and comparatively uninjurious consequences in one case may produce consequences of the most serious and distressing character in another. Hence the general rule is in actions of tort like the present that the wrongdoer is liable for all the direct injury resulting from his wrongful act, and that, too, although the extent or special nature of the resulting injury could not, with certainty, have been foreseen or contemplated as the probable result of the act done." In the case now before us the evidence does not suggest any other cause of the effect complained of. It is a matter of common knowledge or observation that loud explosions, even if unattended by any immediate special dangers, are very trying to the nerves of those subjected to them. This is especially so when such explosions are constantly repeated, as in blasting, and are accompanied by the hurling about of rocks and stones displaced by the blast, to the danger of property, and life. It is equally a matter of common knowledge that as a general rule the nerves of women are more sensitive to injury than those of men, are more easily disturbed, and that, when so disturbed, the injurious consequences are more serious and lasting. Here is a young woman, 30 years of age, in sound health and free from any nervous disorder or tendency. She is subjected to a long continued series of terrific blastings near her dwelling, shattering the roof, walls, and windows by day and by night, and, in the language of the declaration, "putting her in continual fear and jeopardy of her life." In the absence of any evidence of any other cause, why, then, may not her nervous prostration be traced by the jury under the principles stated by Judge Alvey to the one cause shown to exist, viz., the alarm and terror * * under which she was forced to live? In the case just cited there was a motion for a reargument based, as the court stated, upon authorities that were not brought to the attention of the court upon the former hearing, but the motion was overruled; the court saying: "Whether the direct causal connection exists is a question in all cases for the jury upon the facts in proof." In Sloane v. Southern Cal. R. R., 111 Cal. 668, 44 Pac. 320, 32 L. R. A. 193, a case similar to the present, in that there was no physical impact, the court said: "The real question presented by the objections and exception of the appellant is whether the subsequent nervous disturbance of the plaintiff was a suffering of the body or of the mind. The nerves and nerve centers of the body are a part of the physical system, and are not only susceptible of lesion from external causes, but are also liable to be weakened and destroyed from causes primarily acting upon the mind. If these nerves or the entire nervous system are thus affected, there is a physical injury thereby produced; and, if the primal cause of this injury is tortious, it is immaterial whether it is direct as by a blow or indirect through some action upon the mind." If, in the case before us, the plaintiff had received an actual blow, however slight, either from a rock hurled by the blast, from the falling of a wall or ceiling, or even by a fall of herself, caused by the alarm of the concussions, no one would question her right to maintain this action, nor the right of the jury to consider the nervous prostration from which she is suffering in ascertaining the damages to be awarded. If, therefore, the jury had believed from the evidence which was stricken out that the nervous prostration of the plaintiff was the natural and proximate consequence of the alarm and terror to which she was subjected by the constant blasting, it would properly have formed an element for their consideration in reaching their verdict. For these reasons we do not think the question of proximate cause in this case justified the striking out of the testimony bearing upon the nervous shock and the resulting physical injury, nor in the withdrawal of the case from the jury. We now come to the question of expediency. It appears from an examination of the cases in which the right of recovery has been denied where there has been no physical impact, that this doctrine has been the controlling one with the court. This is |