In Battalla v. State of New York (10 N.Y.2d 237 [1961]), the plaintiff, placed in a chair lift by an employee at Bellayre Mountain Ski Center, "became frightened and hysterical upon the decent" as a result of the employee's "failure to secure and properly lock the belt intended to protect the occupant" (id., at 238). The Court held that Mitchell v. Rochester Railway Co. (151 NY 107 [1896]), which had "decided that there could be no recovery for injuries, physical or mental, incurred by fright negligently induced", should be overruled. (Battalla v. State of New York, 10 N.Y.2d at 238.) The Court did not articulate the source of the duty owed to the plaintiff, although by implication it distinguished the case before it from those that found an exception to the no-recovery rule based upon "slight impact" or a "contract relationship". (See id., at 241.) The Court of Appeals applied the principles in Ferrara where an infant plaintiff at a mountain ski center was placed into a chair lift by a state employee, who negligently failed to secure and properly lock the belt on the chair lift. The infant plaintiff became frightened and hysterical upon descent, "with consequential injuries." (Id. at 239) The Appellate Division, Third Department (11 AD2d 613 [1960]), dismissed the case on the basis of Mitchell v Rochester Ry. Co. (151 NY 107, 45 NE 354, 3 NY Ann Cas 283 [1896]), which held that there could be no recovery for injuries caused by "fright negligently induced," whether such injuries are physical or emotional (10 NY2d at 239). The Battalla Court overturned Mitchell, stating that " 'the best statement of the rule is that a wrong-doer is responsible for the natural and proximate consequences of his misconduct; and what are such consequences must generally be left for the determination of the jury.' " (10 NY2d at 240.) The Court of Appeals did not elaborate on what these "consequential injuries" were, and the court does not rely on the existence of such consequential injuries as a basis for its holding. The Court observed that "it is fundamental to our legal system that one may seek redress for every substantial wrong"; and the court further explained that: "We act in the finest common-law tradition when we adapt and alter decisional law to produce common sense justice... Legislative Action there could, of course, be, but we abdicate our own function, in a field peculiarly non statutory, when we refuse to consider an old and unsatisfactory court-made rule" [Battalla, supra, 238-240]