Cahill v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 January 1907 |
| Citation | 193 Mass. 415,79 N.E. 821 |
| Parties | CAHILL v. NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
James H. Sisk, Richard L. Sisk, and William E. Sisk, for plaintiff.
Powers & Hall, for defendant.
This is an action of tort for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while at work in the employment of the defendant as a toll operator at its telephone exchange in the city of Lynn. In the superior court at the close of the evidence for the plaintiff, at the request of the defendant a verdict having been directed in its favor, the case is before us on the plaintiff's exceptions to the ruling. The notice required by Rev. Laws, c. 106,§ 75, not having been given the count under the statute was waived, and the case went to trial on the counts at common law. These in substance alleged that the defendant negligently failed to furnish a safe and suitable place in which she could perform her work, and also had failed to maintain wires, appliances and apparatus in proper condition, and carelessly had allowed them to become defective, whereby the plaintiff while in the performance of her service was injured by receiving a severe shock of electricity. The questions for decision are whether there was evidence of the defendant's negligence, and of the plaintiff's due care, requiring the submission of the case to the jury. The testimony which is reported at length shows that the office used as an exchange was furnished with the usual equipment of wires, transmitters and switch boards and that under normal conditions neither the instrumentalities, nor the place where they were installed and used were unsafe. But being charged with electricity if either the installation or insulation was defective then upon the wires or the transmitters becoming overloaded the use of the apparatus might be rendered dangerous to the operator. By entering the defendant's employment the plaintiff assumed the ordinary risks of nervous annoyance and irritation that might be reasonably connected with the performance of her duties, but this did not include shocks from an electric current which could be found to have caused pronounced bodily prostration, even if the degree of voltage was not sufficiently high to imperil life. There was evidence that on the night before and during the morning of the day of the accident the plaintiff had reported to the chief operator that while at work on the sixth switch board she had received at times sensations not before noticed, although she previously had used this switch board a part of every day for at least a week, and that these sensations while not producing a shock caused 'a jarring and a grinding or rumbling in her ear' which at times caused her head to ache. While at work she sat in front of this switch board attending to calls for the connection of local subscribers with places out of town, and wore upon her head, held in place by a steel spring, a light telephone receiver connected with the switch board by a cord. Upon receiving a call in which she heard the subscriber state the place with which he wished to be connected, there followed, according to her testimony, a sensation of 'shocking and grinding * * * and then my head commenced to ache, and then my side hurt me, and then my arms kind of tightened.' In response to the question, 'Did you lose consciousness then?' she replied, 'Well, I don't think I did wholly.' It appeared from the testimony of one of the defendant's chief operators that if complaints were received that shocks of more or less severity were experienced by employés it was his duty to examine into the cause, and remove the difficulty if it could be done, or if not 'to report the trouble to headquarters.' Notwithstanding there was evidence that disagreeable and annoying noises from the clicking, ringing or buzzing of the apparatus as well as slight shocks were neither uncommon nor dangerous, none of the witnesses testified that these occurrences included the passing of a current of the force described, and it could have been found that the shock received by the plaintiff was not only unusual in severity, but dangerous, and would not have taken place if the apparatus had not been defective. Doyle v. Boston & Maine Railroad Co., 145 Mass. 386, 14 N.E. 461; Griffin v. Boston & Albany Railroad Co., 148 Mass. 143, 19 N.E. 166, 1 L. R. A. 698, 12 Am. St. Rep. 526; Graham v. Badger, 164 Mass. 42, 41 N.E. 61; Carter v. Boston Tow Boat Co., 185 Mass. 496, 498, 70 N.E. 933; Manning v. West End Street Ry. Co., 166 Mass. 230, 231, 44 N.E. 135; Melvin v. Pennsylvania Steel Co., 180 Mass. 196, 62 N.E. 379; Wadsworth v. Boston Elevated...
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