Background
Thomas Wilkinson was the landlord of the Albion public house in Limehouse. A regular customer of the public house named Downton decided to play a practical joke on Wilkinson's wife. When Mr. Wilkinson went to see the races in Harlow, he left his wife to manage the house. Mr. Downton approached Mrs. Wilkinson and told her, falsely, that her husband had been seriously injured in an accident. Mr. Downton told Mrs. Wilkinson that he had suffered two broken legs and that he was lying at The Elms in Leytonstone. He told her that she should go to him in a cab and bring two pillows to carry him home.
The effect of Mr. Downton's false statement to Mrs. Wilkinson was a violent shock to her nervous system, causing her to vomit and for her hair to turn white and other more serious and permanent physical consequences which at one time threatened her reason, and entailing weeks of suffering and incapacity to her as well as expense to her husband for medical expenses. These consequences were not in any way the result of a history of bad health or weakness of constitution; nor was there any evidence of predisposition to nervous shock or any other idiosyncrasy.
Mrs. Wilkinson sued on an action on the case.
Read more about this topic: Wilkinson V Downton
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