Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Roch

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee, Sophia Boch, brought suit against the appellant, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, and secured a verdict against it for certain wrongs alleged to have been committed against her by the manager of one of the appellant’s grocery stores, located on the Belair Boad in Baltimore. The declaration, after describing the nature of the appellant’s business and stating that the appellee was one of its customers, went on to' say: “On or about the 12th day of July 1929, the defendant, through a certain Mr. West, its agent, servant and employee and manager of said store premises, caused a package to be prepared in said store premises for delivery to the said plaintiff and caused the delivery boy employed by the said defendant in said store premises to deliver said package to the plaintiff; that under the explicit in ¹⁹¹ structions of the said manager of the said defendant’s store the said delivery boy handed said package to the plaintiff at the entrance of her dwelling, 3219 Belair Road, in the City of Baltimore, State of Maryland, and under and by virtue of the explicit directions df the said manager of the said defendant’s store, said delivery boy said to the plaintiff then and there, ‘Mr. West said yon had better open it while I am here’; that the plaintiff then and there opened said package and then and there in said package the plaintiff saw a dead rat; as a result thereof the plaintiff became very sick and ill in body and mind, fainted and fell with great force to the floor, and as a result thereof her nervous system suffered and still is suffering excruciating physical pain and mental anguish and other injuries were then and there sustained by her, and the plaintiff says that her said injuries were caused by reason of the careless, reckless and negligent act of the defendant, its agents, servants and employees in the premises, in preparing the package aforesaid, causing the same to be delivered to the plaintiff in the manner and form herein-before set forth.” The defendant (appellant) demurred to the declaration, and, its demurrer having been overruled, it pleaded over, and the trial proceeded to a verdict for the plaintiff (appellee). The rights of the defendant on the demurrer, being preserved on appeal (Code, art. 75, sec. 10), the sufficiency of the declaration will receive first consideration here, and that without regard to the facts presented in evidence, as the evidence cannot he availed of to supply omissions or correct defects in a declaration.

The declaration as drawn presents a case against the defendant, popularly known as the “A and P. Store” for injuries sustained by the plaintiff as a result of a practical joke perpetrated by it. Under the decisions of this court damages may be recovered for physical injuries caused by fright or shock. Baltimore City Passenger Ry. Co. v. Kemp, 61 Md. 80 ; Green v. Shoemaker, 111 Md. 69 , 73 A. 688 ; Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Harris, 121 Md. 254 , 88 A. 282 ; Patapsco Loan Co. v. Hobbs, 129 Md. 9 , 98 A. 239 ; Boh ¹⁹² len’s Studies in the Law of Torts, 288-290.

The declaration as drawn is in accord with the cases cited, and the demurrer was properly overruled. There was no evidence to support the facts alleged in the' declaration as against the defendant and employer, and, if there had been a variance prayer for an instructed verdict for the defendant on the ground that no legally