Arkansas Power & Light Co. v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 31 October 1938
• Docket Number: 4-5221
• Parties: ARKANSAS POWER & LIGHT COMPANY v. THOMPSON
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

120 S.W.2d 709

196 Ark. 1012

ARKANSAS POWER & LIGHT COMPANY v. THOMPSON

4-5221

Supreme Court of Arkansas

October 31, 1938

Appeal from Pike Circuit Court; Minor W. Millwee, Judge; affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

House Moses & Holmes, T. J. Gentry, Jr., Eugene R. Warren, for appellant.

J. C Pennix, Sam T. & Tom Poe, C. E. Johnson, for appellee.

HUMPHREYS, J., BAKER, J., disqualified and not participating.

OPINION

HUMPHREYS, J.

This is a suit brought by appellee against appellant in the circuit court of Pike county to recover damages for injuries received by him in stumbling over a guy wire and stob or stake after dark on September 13, 1937, which appellant had placed in his front yard in the absence of himself and family thereby rendering the premises unsafe and dangerous and negligently leaving them in that condition without giving notice to appellee or without appellee's knowledge that it had erected a service pole in his yard and anchored it with the guy wire attached to the pole and tied to a stob driven down in the yard to secure the other end of the wire.

The gist of the negligence alleged is that although appellant rightfully entered the premises for the purpose of erecting a service pole to carry electricity into the residence then occupied by appellee and to attach to the pole a guy wire held at the other end by a steel stob or stake, yet it was erected and negligently left in a danger-condition without giving appellee notice that it had erected same and without knowledge on the part of appellee that it had done so, and that appellee in the exercise of ordinary care for his own safety, went to the yard fence near his front porch to get some bedclothing he had hung on the fence that morning and after taking them in his arms and starting to turn he caught his foot under the guy wire and fell on the steel stob or stake and injured his back to his damage in the sum of $ 10,000.

Appellant filed an answer denying the material allegations of the complaint and interposing the further defense of contributory negligence on the part of appellee.

The cause was submitted to a jury upon the pleadings, testimony adduced and instructions of the court resulting in a verdict and consequent judgment for $ 10,000, from which is this appeal.

The record reflects that appellee resided upon the Simpson farm near Jacksonville as a tenant at the time he was injured and had resided thereon for a number of years. Ed Simpson, his landlord, had given permission to appellant to enter and erect service lines for electricity into his tenant houses, four in number, one of which was occupied by appellee.

The testimony, stated in the most favorable light to appellee is, in substance, as follows:

Monday morning, September 13, 1937, appellee, at the request of his wife, placed some bed-clothing on the yard fence. After breakfast he went to the cotton field to pick cotton. He returned for dinner and after dinner appellee and his family again went to the cotton field to pick cotton and did not return until about dark. They came in the back way and after doing up his chores and eating supper his wife requested him to bring in the bed-clothing. During the afternoon appellant's employees entered the yard without the knowledge of any member of appellee's family and without notice to him and erected a light pole and attached thereto a guy wire anchoring the wire to a steel stob, or stake, driven into the ground. The stake was driven into the ground about 19 feet from the corner of appellee's front porch and some 30 odd feet from his front door step and near the place he had hung the bed-clothing that morning. When requested to bring in the bed-clothing he went to the yard fence where he had hung them and, in turning around, his right foot and leg became entangled in the stob and guy wire and he fell to the ground on his back and right side which resulted in fracturing the fifth lumbar vertebra in his spinal column and a separation of the left sacro-iliac joint which caused a pressure of the sciatic nerve in the right leg and on the lumbar nerves which produces constant pain; that as a result of the injury his right leg is shorter than the other causing him to limp and walk with a cane; that the injury is permanent and will cause him to suffer pain at times during the remainder of his life; that should he attempt to work it will aggravate his condition. The record reflects a sharp conflict in the evidence as to whether appellee had knowledge of the erection of the pole, guy wire and stob or whether notice was given to him that same would be erected during the afternoon of September 13, 1937, and is also in sharp conflict as to whether appellee was injured and the extent thereof.

The law of negligence applicable to cases of this character is as follows (quoting from 45 Corpus Juris, p. 882):

"A person rightfully entering upon the premises of another is liable for injuries caused by his acts in rendering the premises unsafe and dangerous and negligently...