Southern Pac. Co. v. Hetzer

Citations

• 135 F. 272
• 1 L.R.A.N.S. 288
• 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 4318

Syllabus

<p>1. Personal Injury—Damages—Mental Pain Separable prom Bodily Suppering Inadmissible.</p> <p>In actions for personal injury the plaintiff may recover for the bodily suffering and mental pain which are inseparable and which necessarily and inevitably result from the injury. But mortification and distress of mind from the contemplation of the crippled condition and of its effect upon the esteem of his fellows, that mental pain which is separable from the bodily suffering caused by the injury, is too remote, indefinite, and intangible to constitute an element of the damages in such a case, and evidence of it is inadmissible.</p> <p>[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 15, Cent. Dig. Damages, §§ 100, 222, 255-259, 479.</p> <p>Mental suffering as an element of damages* see note to Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Caulfield, 11 C. C. A. 556.]</p> <p>2. Negligence—Duty op Master to Employ Competent Servants.</p> <p>It is the duty of the master to exercise reasonable care to employ competent servants, and, when he has exercised this care, this duty is discharged.</p> <p>[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 34, Cent. Dig. Master and Servant, § 336.] i</p> <p>8. Same—Duty op Master to Discharge Incompetent Servant.</p> <p>Another duty of the master is to discharge a servant when he knows or by the exercise of reasonable diligence would have known, that the servant has contracted the habit or character of negligence, of drunkenness, or of lack of skill, so that he is incompetent.</p> <p>[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 34, Cent. Dig. Master and Servant, §§ 342-346.]</p> <p>4. Same—Care Required to Ascertain Habits op Competent Servants— Presumption that Competent Servant Remains so.</p> <p>The diligence required of the master to learn the habits or characters of servants employed with due care is not of that degree demanded in his employment of servants or in his inspection of machinery, because careful and skillful men grow more careful and skillful, and the lega