Callaway v. Cent. Ga. Power Co

• Decision Date: 16 September 1931
• Docket Number: Nos. 20922, 20923.,s. 20922, 20923.
• Citation: 43 Ga.App. 820,160 S.E. 703
• Parties: CALLAWAY v. CENTRAL GEORGIA POWER CO. CENTRAL GEORGIA POWER CO. v. CALLAWAY.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

43 Ga.App. 820

160 S.E. 703

CALLAWAY

v.CENTRAL GEORGIA POWER CO.

CENTRAL GEORGIA POWER CO.

v.CALLAWAY.

Nos. 20922, 20923.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Sept. 16, 1931.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Monroe County; G. Ogden Persons, Judge.

Action by Fred Callaway by next friend against the Central Georgia Power Company. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff brings error, and defendant files cross-bill of exceptions.

Affirmed on the main bill of exceptions and cross-bill dismissed.

Smith & Smith and Geo. A. Pindar, all of Macon, and A. M. Zellner, of Forsyth, for plaintiff in error.

Willingham & Willingham, of Forsyth, and Brock, Sparks & Russell, of Macon, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

STEPHENS, J.

1. Although an electric company may be chargeable with knowledge that children play along the streets of a city, it cannot reasonably be anticipated that children, while at play in the streets of the city, will, by throwing a loose wire, make contact with the company's uninsulated wires strung over a street at a height of 20 feet only. It follows that the erection and maintenance by an electric company of highly charged uninsulated wires over the street of a city erected at a height of 20 feet, in the absence of any legal duty placed upon the company to insulate its wires or to maintain them at a higher distance from the ground, is not negligence as respects a child playing in the street, who in play, accidentally throws a small wire attached to a spool over one of the company's wires and thereby receives an electric shock which injures him. Green v. West Penn Railways Co., 246 Pa. 340, 92 A. 341, L. R. A. 1915C, 151; Stark v. Muskegon Traction Co., 141 Mich. 575, 104 N. W. 1100, 1 L. R. A. (N. S.) 822; May-field Water & Light Co. v. Webb's Administrator, 129 Ky. 395, 111 S. W. 712, 18-L. R. A. (N. S.) 179, 130 Am. St. Rep. 469; New York, Chicago & St. L. Railroad Co. v. Ropp, 76 Ohio St. 449, 81 N. E. 748, 11 L. R. A. (N. S.) 413; Brown v. Panola Light & Power Co., 137 Ga. 352, 73 S. E. 580. See note 42 L. R. A. (N. S.) 713; Temple v. McComb City Electric Light Co., 89 Miss. 1, 42 So. 874, 11 L. R. A. (N. S.) 449, 119 Am. St. Rep. 698, 10 Ann. Cas. 924.

2. It was not error to admit in evidence copies from the minutes of the mayor and aldermen of the city evidencing the permission of the city to the electric company to erect its wires along the streets of the city, upon the ground that a blueprint...