City of Thomasville v. Jones

• Citation: 87 S.E. 923,17 Ga.App. 625
• Decision Date: 10 February 1916
• Docket Number: 6459.
• Parties: CITY OF THOMASVILLE v. JONES.
• Court: United States Court of Appeals (Georgia)

87 S.E. 923

17 Ga.App. 625

CITY OF THOMASVILLE v. JONES.

No. 6459.

Court of Appeals of Georgia

February 10, 1916

Syllabus by the Court.

Considering the petition as a whole, it is apparent that recovery is sought for the homicide of the minor son of the plaintiff because of negligence on the part of the defendant in so maintaining and operating an electric lighting plant for hire that a dangerous current of high voltage was thereby permitted to pass from the primary conducting wires to secondary wires, intended only for the passage of an innocuous current of low voltage, which the deceased had a right to anticipate would alone be allowed to enter the secondary wires, which current of high voltage entered his body with fatal effect, through an electric light fixture which the performance of his duties required him to move and thus come in contact with, and which was connected with a house lighting system, requiring a voltage of approximately 110 only.

(a) The petition as amended was not subject to general demurrer, nor was there such harmful error, in the light of the entire pleadings and evidence in the case, in the overruling of the special demurrers, as to require the grant of a new trial.

The evidence disclosed that the deceased was a young and vigorous man, with no known physical defect at the time of his death that in the performance of his duties he caught hold of a tin reflector attached to a 16-candle incandescent light, to supply which only a current of 110 to 120 volts was necessary or proper; that his death followed almost instantaneously under circumstances from which the jury were authorized to infer that it was brought about by a high and dangerous electrical current of far greater voltage than that requisite to supply the said light, and far greater than the deceased had any reason to apprehend was then traversing the electric fixture or entering the secondary circuit connected therewith, which high and dangerous current had been permitted to enter the secondary wires or circuit and thus to bring about his death through the negligence of the defendant.

(a) Under the proof that a current of 110 to 120 volts would be entirely harmless, and the circumstances in proof showing the manner of his death, the jury were authorized to infer that a current of far greater voltage than 120 was traversing the secondary circuit at the moment the deceased placed his hand on the reflector attached to the incandescent lamp, and that his death resulted therefrom; and since the evidence disclosed that a voltage of 110 to 120 only should have been permitted to circulate, or would have circulated through the secondary wires or circuit if no negligent contact between the primary and secondary wires had occurred, or if the electric light plant had been properly constructed, the jury had the right to infer that the negligence of the defendant in the construction, connection, or maintenance of the wires belonging to its plant brought about the passage of the highly dangerous and unnecessary current over the secondary circuit, and thereby caused the death of the deceased. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applies, since the happening of the event necessarily established the existence of antecedent negligence which produced the result. See, on the general subject, Sinkovitz v. Peters Land Co., 5 Ga.App. 788, 64 S.E. 93.

(b) The proximate efficient cause of the injury was the admission through the negligence of the defendant, of a high and dangerous current into wires intended to convey only a low and harmless current; and the fact that there was a defect in the lamp itself, or that the fuse in the building where the deceased met his death was a 20 ampere fuse, capable of conducting a higher current than that required to supply the lighting system in the building where the deceased was killed, and to furnish enough electricity for a 16-candle power light, could not effect this necessary conclusion. If a dangerous current of electricity had not been permitted to enter the secondary wires by negligence on the part of the defendant, it could not have been conveyed to the deceased and no harm could have resulted to him; so that, regardless of any defects in the wiring of the building or in the lamps in use therein (if the employer of the deceased, and not the defendant, was chargeable with the construction and...