Burnham v. Webster — 3 N.Y. St. Rep. 530

Majority

p. 530

Catharine M. Burnham v. Charles B. Webster, et al.

(New York Superior Court, General Term,

Filed November 10, 1886.)

Headnote

Assault and batteby—Damages m action fob.

In an action by a woman for damages for assault and battery and false-imprisonment, she is entitled to recover only the damages she personally sustained; expenses incurred by her husband for her care during an illness, occasioned by the assault and battery form no part of such damages.

This is an appeal by the defendants from a judgment entered on a verdict in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants, and from an order denying a motion on the. judge’s minutes for a new trial. The action was brought, to recover damages for an assault and battery and false imprisonment.

Joseph H. Choate and Augustus C .Brown, for app’lts; Benjamin F. Watson and F. A. Burnham, for resp’ts.

The principal question on this appeal is presented by the exceptions that were taken to the admission of evidence, showing that plaintiff’s husband had expended $5,000 in endeavoring to cure plaintiff of the injuries that had been inflicted by the defendants; by the exception that-was taken to the refusal of the court to charge that the plaintiff could not recover for moneys expended by her husband for services of physicians and traveling and other expenses; and by the exception to the charge that in estimating the damages that had been sustained by the plaintiff, the jury might consider the expenses incurred by the husband in the care of his wife, and the expenses incurred by him while traveling with plaintiff in Europe.

We are of the opinion that the expenses incurred by the husband were no part of the damages that the wife sustained by reason of the assault and battery or false imprisonment. She was entitled to recover only for the damages that she personally had sustained. For the damages that her husband had sustained by reason of the acts of the defendants, he had a cause of action against the defendants.

We are of the opinion that the errors committed in the admission of this evidence, and in the refusal to charge as requested, and in the charge as made to which an exception was taken, call for the reversal of this judgment and for the granting of a new trial.

We are also of the opinion that the complaint states, and that the evidence tended to prove a cause of action against all the defendants.

Judgment and order appealed from are reversed, and a new trial ordered, with cost to the appellant.