Illinois Power & Light Corporation v. Hurley

• Decision Date: 20 February 1929
• Docket Number: No. 8246.,8246.
• Citation: 30 F.2d 905
• Parties: ILLINOIS POWER & LIGHT CORPORATION v. HURLEY et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

30 F.2d 905 (1929)

ILLINOIS POWER & LIGHT CORPORATION v. HURLEY et al.

No. 8246.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 20, 1929.

Thomas F. Doran, of Topeka, Kan. and E. Bentley Hamilton, of Peoria, Ill. (T. M. Pierce and Anderson, Gilbert & Wolfort, all of St. Louis, Mo., on the brief), for appellant.

Charles J. Dolan, of St. Louis, Mo. (John S. Leahy, T. J. Hoolan, and Leahy, Saunders & Walther, all of St. Louis, Mo., on the brief), for appellees.

Before KENYON, Circuit Judge, and JOHNSON and McDERMOTT, District Judges.

KENYON, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, a corporation of the state of Illinois, is successor of the Madison County Light & Power Company (herein designated as the Power Company), which company supplied the Cain-Hurley Lumber Company, a Missouri corporation, operating a large lumber yard at Brooklyn, Ill., with electricity for the lighting and operation of its plant. This light and power was supplied through transformers stationed near a building on the property, and from which transformers the electricity passed to a meter board inside that part of the building known as the planing mill; and through the meter it was distributed throughout the plant. There were three railroad tracks either adjacent to or within the yard.

Appellees are the trustees of the Cain-Hurley Lumber Company (hereinafter designated as the lumber company), which has been dissolved since the fire. Early in the morning of February 23, 1922, a fire destroyed a large part of the plant of the lumber company. Suit was brought against appellant by appellees. A verdict was rendered by the jury for $120,000 damages, and judgment entered thereon.

The petition charged that "the said Madison County Light & Power Company carelessly and negligently caused, suffered and permitted its said wires and other electrical appliances and apparatuses, including its said bank of transformers to emit and discharge electric current, sparks, fire and flame, thereby setting fire to the plant and properties of the said Cain-Hurley Lumber Company."

Many assignments of error are presented. The only one necessary to be considered in our view of the case is in relation to the refusal of the court to direct a verdict for defendant at the close of all the evidence. Such motion was made at the close of plaintiffs' evidence, but defendant waived the same by proceeding to introduce its evidence.

Questions of fact are, of course, for the jury, and a court should not transgress on the jury's province, but the question of whether there is sufficient evidence to submit a case to the jury is a question of law. Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hatten (C. C. A.) 17 F.(2d) 889; Dierks Lumber & Coal Co. v. Brown (C. C. A.) 19 F.(2d) 732.

From the evidence in this case it appears that the plant of the lumber company covered a large area (some four and one-half acres). The office was near the southwest corner of the property, some distance from the grain door mill and planing mill, which seems to have been one building with storage shed attached. A switch track passed through the premises adjacent to the grain door mill and planing mill. There was a loading platform along by the track. Large open spaces existed adjacent to the switch track for the piling of lumber. There was a lunchroom near the wagon road running through the yard, and other buildings in the nature of storage sheds and retail sheds were upon the premises. There were three transformers which, for the convenience of all parties, had been moved from their former location, and, at the time of the fire, were 18 to 24 inches from the grain door and planing mill. They rested on a wooden platform about 8 feet above the ground, which platform was fastened by bolts to two wooden poles. About 18 inches above the transformers there was a cross-arm supporting three fuse cut-outs. The primary wires leading to the transformers and meter board and the transformers were the property of the power company. The secondary wires leading from the meter board throughout the plant were the property of, and maintained by, the lumber company. The power company delivered the current over wires attached to the top of the poles, down through the fuse cut-outs and into the transformers, at 2,300 volts, and it came out of the transformers on the secondary side at 220 volts, which was the voltage used by the lumber company in the lighting and operation of its plant. There were plugs in each fuse cut-out which, if drawn, would prevent the passage of the current through the cut-outs. The primary coils of the three transformers were connected; also the secondary coils, completing what is termed by the experts, a delta connection, but there was no electrical connection between the primary and secondary coils. The heavy voltage passing through the primary coils induces a current in the secondary coils of much lower voltage. The mission of the transformer is the reduction of the voltage, and is brought about through the coils of insulated wires wrapped around a metal core within the transformer. It is unnecessary to set forth in detail the technique of this process.

The night of the fire, February 23, 1922, was a dark, rainy, windy night. Witness Avara was the night watchman at the lumber plant. He carried a clock which had eleven keys in various places throughout the yard. When the key was turned in the clock it registered the time he was at the particular place. He visited every key once each hour through the night. When he came out of the office about 1 o'clock in the morning of the day of the fire he noticed a flash of light, and on investigation he found it was at an iron bolt on the north pole, to which the platform, upon which the transformers stood, was attached. He testified as follows:

"A. After I saw this light I went around this box car and went into the plant, and up on the north pole of this plant was a fire where the bolt had went through, that is this bolt to support the foundation that the transformer was setting on.

"Q. Where was that bolt? A. The bolt that was supporting the platform that the transformers were setting on, there was quite a blaze coming out from that bolt. There was fire burning into this pole. I would say the hole the fire had made in this pole was something like two inches in diameter and there was a blaze coming out of there perhaps six inches long, and I saw that something had to be done, and I went into the little room there, the tool room. I got a fire extinguisher."

After getting the fire extinguisher, he unloaded it on the flame. This had no effect whatever. He then phoned for the fire department at Brooklyn, but did not succeed in getting it, and then endeavored to get another fire department. He told one of the firemen over the phone the nature of the trouble, and the fireman informed him that he needed an electrician instead of a fire department. After this, he called the superintendent of the plant, Mr. Royals, who came over to the plant in about 30 minutes, and they got Harry Dreams, a colored employee, who operated the lunchroom, to help. Dreams put a ladder up on the pole where the fire was; went up, and, at the direction of Royals, pulled out a fuse plug, and the fire went out. At about that time an electrician of the power company (Anderson) came, and a couple more men as helpers, and Avara continued on his rounds for the rest of the night, seeing no more fire until morning, although he on his rounds was within 30 to 35 feet of these transformers every hour.

The witness Dreams testified as to Avara and Royals awakening him about midnight and as to his going up the ladder and pulling the fuse. He noticed the fire as he passed up the pole, and, when he came back after pulling the fuse, he did not see any fire; that Anderson with his two helpers came about the time he pulled the fuse plug. They put on what is termed a jumper, that is, the wires on each side of the fuse box were cut, and a new wire was put around the fuse box, thus eliminating entirely the fuse box where the leak existed. The function of this operation was to carry the current around the fuse box and preserve its continuity. The current would continue to go into the transformers, but would pass over the jumper and not through the fuse cut-out. As a test as to whether the transformers were operating properly, the nearest 3-phase motor in the building to the transformers was turned on, and it operated all right. Dreams testified that Anderson told Royals at the office that night when talking over the situation that the transformer was shot, and that he could not examine the job that night on account of the weather, but had fixed it temporarily, and would be back the following day and give permanent relief, but that everything was all right, and they could run the plant.

Royals testified to practically the same thing as Dreams concerning the pulling of the fuse plug, and that the fire disappeared immediately thereafter, and also that Anderson told him the transformer was shot. He testified that, when he first saw the flame about midnight, it "was running up and down the pole," and "was between the platform that separates the three transformers and the cross-arm above;" that the only flame he saw was the blue flame on the pole; that ceased when the fuse plug was pulled. It is without question that there was a heavy rain through the night, continuing until about 4 o'clock; that at about 6 o'clock in the morning Mrs. Dreams came running down to the office and announced that the planing mill was on fire. The lights had been on in the office from the time of the repairs until a little while before the alarm was sounded. Witnesses testified that shortly before the fire lights in the office, which were a part of the lighting system of the yard, would go off and then on, and that just a few minutes before the alarm the lights went out in the office and did not come back. No investigation was made as to why the lights...