Gill v. Southwest Arkansas Elec. Co-op. Corp., 92-2158

Citation982 F.2d 525
Decision Date12 October 1992
Docket NumberNo. 92-2158,92-2158
PartiesNOTICE: Eighth Circuit Rule 28A(k) governs citation of unpublished opinions and provides that they are not precedent and generally should not be cited unless relevant to establishing the doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel, the law of the case, or if the opinion has persuasive value on a material issue and no published opinion would serve as well. J. D. GILL; James Collier; Ted Collier, Appellants, v. SOUTHWEST ARKANSAS ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE CORPORATION, Appellee. . Submitted:
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Before FAGG, BOWMAN, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

J.D. Gill, James Collier, and Ted Collier (plaintiffs), appeal the judgment entered by the District Court 1 following a jury trial and the District Court's order denying their motion for a new trial. Plaintiffs filed this action against Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation (Southwest), alleging that they hired Southwest to install electrical service in their hunting lodge, and that Southwest negligently installed an electrical insulator. Due to Southwest's negligence, they contended, the lodge caught fire and was destroyed. They claimed damages of $100,000.

At trial, plaintiffs called as a hostile witness Terry Lee, the Southwest employee who installed the insulator. During Lee's examination, plaintiffs identified, but did not introduce into evidence, a model of a section of the lodge wall. The pertinent part of the model consisted of two horizontal two-by-fours, nailed directly on top of one another, to form a layer the thickness of a four-by-four. The difference between the model and the lodge wall was that metal siding one millimeter thick covered the actual wall. On the model, the two-by-fours were not covered with metal siding. Because the metal siding on the actual wall obscured the two-by-fours beneath, plaintiffs asked Lee whether he could have screwed the insulator between the two-by-fours, rather than squarely into the top one, so that the insulator was not firmly installed. Through this line of questioning, plaintiffs sought to show that the insulator was carelessly installed and that it fell, or was pulled by the weight of the wire it was insulating, to the ground, and the arcing that occurred caused the fire. Lee denied that he had screwed the insulator between the two-by-fours.

Southwest asked Lee to demonstrate for the jury how he installed the insulator, using plaintiffs' wall model and a new...

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