NOTES OF RECENT CASES a contract for services to be rendered in promot ing or bringing about a marriage, but in the Iowa case it did not appear whether the deceased already had a contract of marriage with the woman whom claimant was to interview or not, and the court holds that the rule which precludes a recovery on an ordinary marriage brokagc con tract, is as clearly applicable to advice or solici tation with reference to carrying out a marriage contract as it is with reference to the formation of such a contract. MENTAL SUFFERING. (ELEMENTS OF DAMAGE — EVIDENCE — DREAMS) SUPREME COURT OP -KENTUCKY. A case apparently withoxit precedent and well illustrating the necessary limits within which evidence of physical and mental sxiffering, as an element of damage, must be confined, is that of Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Smith, 84 South western Reporter, 755. The action was for per sonal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of defendant railroad company. Upon the question of the suffering resulting from the injury, plaintiff was allowed to testify that he dreamed one night that his hand was to be ampu tated, that it troubled him a great deal as to how he would get his hand back again, and that he told his wife to put it in ice to preserve it, so that all of his body could be buried together. The court holds that the admission of plaintiff's relation of his dream is not justifiable upon any ground, and says that while it was competent for him to testtfv fully as to the nature and extent of his suffering, all the rules of evidence were violated in allowing him to recite his dream, and this is so, even though certain writers main tain that dreams are due to the physical and mental condition of the dreamer. Without pre tending to have made any study of the question which would justify the expression of an opinion, and expressly disclaiming any intent to do so, the writer wishes to append a query. If one injured through the negligence of another is entitled to recover for the mental as well as physical suffering, directly caused by the injury, and if it can be shown by expert or other evi dence, that a dream, such as plaintiff had, was a natural, probable, or even possible, result of the injury, would it be true that plaintiff would be precluded from recovering for the mental suffering which the dream clearly caused during the time of its existence, merely because he was at that time asleep? That mental suffering may be experienced during sleep can scarcely admit of doubt, and certainly cannot be denied by anyone who has experienced the sensation known
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as nightmare, or observed another who is so afflicted. Eminent medical authorities agree that no mental suffering of the waking moments is more intense. If this be true, and this mental suffering is the result of the injury, why is it not an element of damage, and, consequently, why is not evidence of its existence admissible? NEGLIGENCE. (PERSONAL INJURIES — AMUSEMENT PARK — INJURY TO PATRON —• MEASURE OP CARE REQUIRED) SUPREME COURT op IOWA. A case which involves a state of facts which is perhaps not particularly unusual, but which has, nevertheless, not to our knowledge pre viously furnished foundation for litigation, is that of Williams v. National City Park Association, 102 Northwestern Reporter, 783. Defendant was the owner of an amulsement park or field, in which it maintained a grand stand or amphi theater containing seats, and having erected over its central portion a platform for the use of a band. Plaintiff, who had paid her admission to the grounds, and also an additional fee for a seat in the amphitheater, was injured by the falling of a bottle from the band stand. On this state of facts it is held that the mere fact that a mem ber of the band, whether he was an employee of defendant or of the band director, carelessly dropped the bottle upon the plaintiff would not sustain a charge of negligence against the defend ant. Upon this point, Mr. Justice Weaver says: "The negligence of the servant for which the master must respond to a third person is negligence in some act or failure to act, within the scope of his employment. So far as this record shows, the employment of the band was for no other purpose than to provide music for the occasion, and, ordinarily at least, the relation of beer to harmony of sound is not so obviously necessary that the passing of bottles between members can be said to be within the scope of a musician's employment." A question of a some what broader scope, and more real practical im portance, is that presented by plaintiff's conten tion that as she had placed herself in charge of defendant it created "a sort of bailment, just as if she had placed herself in a railroad's hands as passenger." The court, however, holds that defendant could only be required to exercise reasonable care, observing that it would require too rmich ingenuity to adjust the law of bail ments to the implied contract which arises between the proprietor of a place of public amusement and a visitor who enters such place upon the proprietor's invitation, and that the undertaking of such a proprietor is not so similar to that of
