became and was the duty of the said defendant to conduct and demean himself in an orderly and peaceable manner, and to announce or give notice and warning of his approach to and into said house, and to the presence of the plaintiff; yet the defendant, wholly disregarding his duty in that behalf, neglected and wholly failed to announce his entry to the said house to the plaintiff or any other occupant thereof, but wrongfully and wilfully then and there, entered therein unbidden, and then and there stealthily, and without warning or announcement, entered the presence of the plaintiff, greatly surprising and shocking her; that the defendant then and there demeaned himself in the presence of the plaintiff in a violent and boisterous manner, using towards her violent, abusive, and threatening language, greatly frightening, terrifying, and shocking her, whereby she sustained a severe and permanent shock to her nervous system and mind, and otherwise sustained great and permanent bodily harm and injury, and became and was sick, sore, and disordered, and so remained thence hitherto, during all which time she suffered, and still does and will ever suffer, great pain. The second and third counts are substantially like the first. The fourth count alleges the plaintiff was in a bedroom in a certain dwelling, which dwelling was the home and residence of the plaintiff, and then alleges the facts substantially as set forth in the first count. A general demurrer to the declaration was interposed and overruled, and a plea of general issue was filed.

The evidence showed that appellant lived with her sister, who was a tenant of appellee. Appellee went to the house to collect rent. His conduct, actions, and language while there are alleged to have been so negligent that they caused the injury to appellant, by fright and mental shock, which resulted in serious physical impairment. The actions and language of appellee which are the basis of this suit are given by appellant and her witnesses substantially as follows: When appellee entered the house, his tenant, the sister of appellant, was having her household goods removed therefrom. Appellant testified as to what took place, as follows:

"I was upstairs in my bedroom, sitting on the floor. Something made me look up, and Mr. Craven [appellee] waved his arms, and shouted. He seemed so big. I was flat on the floor. He said: 'What are you doing here? I forbid you moving. If you attempt to move I will have a constable here in five minutes. I refuse to take possession of these premises.' I was so frightened I was paralyzed with fear. I could not speak or move.”

The brother of appellant testified:

"I remember the day that we moved from Benson avenue down to Clark and Halsted streets. I saw the defendant at our home on that day. When I first saw him, he was standing just inside the bedroom door, where my sister, Mrs. Braun, was, - on the second floor. That bedroom was the northwest room. I heard him before I saw him. I heard him say: 'Here! what are you doing? Don't you move. I refuse to take possession of these premises. I will

have an officer here in five minutes to stop these goods.' These words were spoken in a very loud and angry tone of voice. I was just out of sight, at the end of the hall, when he said, 'Here! what are you doing? Don't you move;' and then I came towards him to see what was the matter, not knowing what it was, and the rest of it I heard as he stood over her. She was sitting on the floor. As he was speaking these words he was swinging his arms, and gesticulating very wildly. On hearing these words uttered by the defendant, I hurried to the front end of the hall, and saw him standing in the door. I went clear up to him. He was standing very close to my sister- clear up to her, right by her side. She was sitting flat on the floor. He was close enough to have touched her with his hands if he had so desired to. I should say close up to her, - not six inches from her. Upon my going up there to where the defendant was, I said: 'Here, what is the trouble here? What do you want?' He turned to me, and said: 'I refuse to take possession of these premises. I will have an officer here in five minutes to stop these goods.' When he said these words, he was still close by my sister. I tried to stop him, and said, 'What is the matter?' and he turned around, and went downstairs as hard as he could go."

Much additional evidence as to the effect of fright in causing injury was before the jury. A verdict was returned by the jury in favor of the plaintiff (appellant here) and her damage was assessed at $9,000. A motion for a new trial and a motion in arrest of judgment were both overruled, and judgment was entered on the verdict. The defendant, the appellee here, sued out a writ of error from the Appellate Court for the First District to review that judgment; and by the latter court the judgment of the Superior Court of Cook County was reversed, without remanding the cause, the Appellate Court holding, under the pleading and facts appearing in the record, there was no right of recovery. From that judgment of reversal, the plaintiff in the trial Court, who was defendant in error in the Appellate Court, prosecutes this appeal. William Prentiss, Russell M. Wing, and James Heckman, for appellant.

Pliny B. Smith and Morton V. Gilbert, for appellee.

PHILLIPS, J. (after stating the facts). The declaration in this case charges appellee with negligence in approaching the room where appellant was, and in so speaking and acting in her presence as to cause her injury. This constitutes the entire allegation on which a recovery is sought under the various counts of this declaration. In addition to the evidence above recited, it is disclosed that appellee claimed there was rent due him, and he entered the house for the purpose of collecting the same before the tenant's goods should be removed therefrom. Under this state of facts, it is necessary to determine whether the language of the appellee, his manner of entering the house, and his acts therein, are such as can be held to constitute negligence, and whether the injury sustained by appellant was such as might have been foreseen, or was such a natural and probable consequence, under the surrounding circumstances, as might reasonably have been anticipated as the probable results of such acts and language. The principle is, damages which are recov

erable for negligence must be such as are the natural and reasonable results of defendant's acts; and the consequences must be such as, in the ordinary course of things, would flow from the acts, and could be reasonably anticipated as a result thereof. Proximate damages are such as are the ordinary and natural results of the omission or commission of acts of negligence, and such as are usual and might have been reasonably expected. Remote damages are such as are the unusual and unexpected result, not reasonably to be anticipated from an accidental or unusual combination of circumstances, a result beyond and over which the negligent party has no control. The law regards only the direct and proximate results of negligent acts as creating a liability against a defendant. Here, appellee approached the house, and entered the same, the door being ajar. So far as the averments of this declaration are concerned, he lawfully entered the house for the purpose of collecting rent. He passed noiselessly (because of wearing overshoes) up the stairs and along the hall, approached the door of the only room he saw occupied, and used the language and made the gestures testified to by the plaintiff's witnesses without impact with plaintiff's person. He then turned and left the room, and went hurriedly to the office of the justice of the peace. These acts could not, in the ordinary course of things, have been reasonably anticipated to cause a diseased condition of appellant,-to create in her a seriously diseased condition. Appellee might have reasonably anticipated that his acts would cause excitement, or even fright; but fright and excitement so seldom result in a practically incurable disease that, from the ordinary experience of mankind, such a result could not have been expected. The evidence for plaintiff was that, by reason of the excitement and fright, a condition of chorea, or St. Vitus' dance, was produced. This is shown to be a diseased physical condition, resulting from mental suffering, superinduced by excitement and fright, unattended by injury to the person resulting from impact. Under the pleadings in this case, mere words and gestures are sought to be made actionable because of the nervous temperament of the plaintiff, without which such words and gestures would not be actionable. This would introduce and incorporate in the law a new element of damage, cause of action, by which a recovery might be had for an injury resulting to one of a peculiarly nervous temperament, while no injury would result to another in identically the same position. Of such a cause of action and liability for damage a dangerous use could be made. No such recovery is authorized under the common law, and no statute gives it.

In Allsop v. Allsop, 5 Hurl. & N. 534, Pollock, C. B., said:

a new

"We are all of the opinion that the defendant is entitled to judgment. There is no precedent for any such special damage as that laid in this declaration being made a ground of action, so as to render words actionable which otherwise would not be so. We ought to be careful not to introduce a new element of damage, recollecting to what a large class of actions it would apply, and what

a dangerous use might be made of it. In actions for making false charges before magistrates, for giving false characters, and for torts of all kinds, illness might be said to have arisen by the wrong sustained by the plaintiff. . . . This particular damage depends on the temperament of the party affected, and it may be laid down that illness arising from the excitement which the slanderous language may produce is not that sort of damage which forms a ground of action." . . . In Ewing v. Railway Co., 147 Pa. St. 40, 23 Atl. 340, it was said:

"It is plain from the plaintiff's statement of her case that her only injury proceeded from fright, alarm, fear, and nervous excitement and distress. There was no allegation that she received any bodily injury. If mere fright, unaccompanied with bodily injury, is a cause of action, the scope of what are known as accident cases will be greatly enlarged; for, in every case of a collision on a railroad, the passengers, although they may have sustained no bodily harm, will have a cause of action against the company for 'fright' to which they have been subjected. This is a step beyond any decision of any legal tribunal of which we have knowledge. . . . We need not discuss the authorities cited by the appellant. They are nearly all cases in which the fright was the result of or accompanied by a personal injury, and have no application to the case in hand."

In Mitchell v. Railway Co., 151 N. Y. 107, 45 N. E. 354, it was said:

"While the authorities are not harmonious upon this question, we think the most reliable and better considered cases, as well as public policy, fully justify us in holding that the plaintiff cannot recover for injuries occasioned by fright, as there was no immediate personal injury. . . . If the right of recovery in this class of cases should be once established, it would naturally result in a flood of litigation in cases where the injury complained of may be easily feigned without detection, and where the damages must rest upon mere conjecture or speculation. The difficulty which often exists in cases of alleged physical injury in determining whether they exist, and, if so, whether they were caused by the negligent act of the defendant, would not only be greatly increased, but a wide field would be open for fictitious or speculative claims. To establish such a doctrine would be contrary to principles of public policy. Moreover, it cannot be properly said that the plaintiff's miscarriage was the proximate result of the defendant's negligence. Proximate damages are such as are the ordinary and natural results of the negligence charged, and those that are usual, and may therefore be expected. It is quite obvious that the plaintiff's injuries do not fall within the rule as to proximate damages. The injuries to the plaintiff were plainly the result of an accidental or unusual combination of circumstances, which could not have been reasonably anticipated, and over which the defendant had no control, and hence her damages are too remote to justify a recovery in this action. These considerations lead to the conclusion that no recovery can be had for injuries sustained by fright occasioned by the negligence of another, where there is no immediate personal injury."

In Victorian Railway Com'rs v. Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222, it was said:

"The rule of English law as to the damages which are recoverable for negligence is stated by the Master of the Rolls in The Notting Hill, 9 Prob. Div. 105,

a case of negligent collision. It is that the damages must be the natural and reasonable result of the defendant's act, - such a consequence as in the ordinary course of things would flow from the act. .. According to the evidence of the female plaintiff, her fright was caused by seeing the train approaching, and thinking they were going to be killed. Damages arising from mere sudden terror, unaccompanied by any actual physical injury, but occasioning a mental or nervous shock, cannot, under such circumstances, their lordships think, be considered a consequence which, in the ordinary course of things, would flow from the negligence of the gatekeeper. If it were held that they can, it appears to their lordships that it would be extending the liability for negligence much beyond what that liability has hitherto been held to be. Not only in such a case as the present, but in every case where an accident caused by negligence had given a person a serious nervous shock, there might be a claim for damages on account of mental injury. The difficulty which often exists, in case of alleged physical injuries, of determining whether they were caused by the negligent act, would be greatly increased, and a wide field opened for imaginary claims. The learned counsel for the respondents was unable to produce any decision of the English courts in which, upon such facts as were proved in this case, damages were recovered. . . . It is remarkable that no precedent has been cited of an action similar to the present having been maintained or even instituted, and their lordships decline to establish such precedent. They are of opinion that the first question, whether the damages are too remote, should have been answered in the affirmative, and on that ground, without saying that impact is necessary, that judgment should have been for the defendants."

Appellant relies upon Bell v. Railroad Co., 26 L. R. Ir. 432, and Purcell v. Railway Co., 48 Minn. 134, 50 N. W. 1034. Both of these cases fully sustain the contention of appellant that where sudden terror occasions a nervous shock, resulting from a negligent act, without impact or physical contact, by which the mind is affected, which may press on the health and affect the physical organization, a cause of action for negligence results. These cases have the approval of Mr. Beven, in his work on Negligence (Vol. I, pp. 76-84), and of Mr. Sedgwick, in his work on Damages (8th ed., § 861). The Purcell case arose on a demurrer to the complaint, and it was conceded that the effect of a wrongful act or of negligence on the mind alone will not furnish ground of action. The entire discussion was confined to the question whether the defendant's negligence was the proximate cause of the injury, and whether, if the fright was a natural consequence thereof, and caused the nervous shock and consequent illness, the negligence was actionable. While it is the duty of a carrier to anticipate that an accident or appearance of great danger will produce fright and excitement, and that an accident will cause physical injury, it could not be anticipated that a disease of the mind would result; and, unless such anticipation could be had in the light of the attending surroundings, it would not constitute the proximate cause of the injury, under the great weight of authority. In the Purcell Case, fright may have been the natural consequence of the circumstances of peril and alarm in which defendant's negligence placed plaintiff, and the fright may have caused the nervous shock and consequent illness of