Americus Gas & Elec. Co. v. Coleman
| Decision Date | 18 February 1915 |
| Docket Number | 5688. |
| Citation | 84 S.E. 493,16 Ga.App. 17 |
| Parties | AMERICUS GAS & ELECTRIC CO. v. COLEMAN. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
A verdict may be upheld when based upon evidence supporting allegations in a petition which are sufficiently definite (under the reasonable and liberal construction favored by the courts) to clearly put the opposite party on notice as to the cause of action relied upon.
(a) Measured in this way, the petition not only charged negligence on the part of the defendant in permitting certain electric wires to become exposed by loss of their insulating covering, and thereby extremely dangerous, but also charged negligence on account of the faulty construction of the electric light system at the point where the injury occurred.
(b) All assignments of error based on instructions from the court relative to the duty of the defendant as to the proper erection and maintenance of its electric light system, and likewise assignments of error on account of the refusal to give certain instructions to the jury restricting the right of recovery solely to negligence in permitting certain wires conveying a dangerous electric current to become denuded of their insulating covering, are therefore without merit.
Where a paragraph in a petition alleges gross carelessness and wanton and willful disregard of life and property because of certain specific facts therein stated, and there is no evidence whatever introduced which tends to sustain such allegations it is error on the part of the court to read to the jury that portion of the plaintiff's petition.
The following charge was error: "They are bound to provide such safeguards against danger as are best known and most extensively used, and all necessary protection must be afforded to avoid casualties which may be reasonably expected." The duty rested upon the defendant to use such safeguards against danger, in the construction and maintenance of its wires, poles, etc., as were prudent usual, and customary, but the burden did not rest upon the defendant to employ the safeguards "best known and most extensively used." The defendant was bound to ordinary care and diligence, and was required to so construct its lighting system that persons proceeding along the streets and highways, according to the usual modes of travel, would not be liable to incur danger from currents of electricity by contact therewith.
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