Consolidated Electric Light and Power Company v. Koepp

• Citation: 68 P. 608,64 Kan. 735
• Decision Date: 05 April 1902
• Docket Number: 12,124
• Parties: CONSOLIDATED ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER COMPANY v. WILLIAM F. KOEPP, etc
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Kansas

68 P. 608

64 Kan. 735

CONSOLIDATED ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER COMPANY v. WILLIAM F. KOEPP, etc

No. 12,124

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 5, 1902

Decided January, 1902.

Error from Wyandotte court of common pleas; W. G. HOLT, judge.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

PERSONAL INJURY -- Light and Telephone Wires -- Proximate Cause. The proximate cause of an injury is that which naturally leads to, and which might have been expected to be directly instrumental in, producing the result. Held, that permission by the plaintiff in error to R. to attach his private telephone wire to its electric-light poles was not the proximate cause of the injury sustained by defendant in error.

Harkless O'Grady & Crysler, and Moore & Berger, for plaintiff in error.

John A. Hale, Horace G. Pope, and L. F. Bird, for defendant in error.

GREENE J. DOSTER, C. J., SMITH, ELLIS, JJ., concurring.

OPINION

GREENE, J.:

The plaintiff below sought to recover damages in this action for injuries which it is alleged he sustained by coming in contact with what is known as a live telephone wire.

The substance of the allegations in his petition is that the defendant, the Consolidated Electric Light and Power Company, in operating its plant in Kansas City, Kan., had its poles on and along Osage avenue running east and west from Ninth street to Ferree street; that it negligently permitted one John Radford to attach to and string along on its electric-light poles a private telephone wire about two feet below the electric wires, and negligently permitted an uninsulated electric-light wire to cross, or come in such close proximity with, said telephone wire at a point where said electric-light wire had become uninsulated that it transferred to the telephone wire a current of electricity which caused the Radford residence, into which the wire ran, to take fire, and that the fire caused the telephone wire to become detached from the house and fall to the ground on a vacant lot or common, where the plaintiff below, while going to the fire and without any fault on his part, ran on said telephone wire and received the injury of which he complains.

The evidence proves that Radford placed said telephone wire on the electric-light poles of the plaintiff in error and maintained it there with its knowledge and consent. The only question for the consideration of this court is whether the act of the defendant below in permitting Radford to place the telephone wire on its electric-light poles was the proximate cause of the injury sustained by the defendant in error. When the facts are established, whether the negligent acts complained of are the proximate cause of the injury is a question of law to be determined by the court. ( Deisenrieter v. The Kraus-Merkel Malting Co., 97 Wis. 279, 72 N.W. 735.)

It is too well known to need illustration that negligence or other unintentional wrong will not furnish the foundation for a cause of action for damages unless it was the proximate cause of the injury sustained. The law, however, demands of every person in any employment the exercise of ordinary care proportionate to the risk of the business, or of his particular situation, that damage may not result therefrom to others. In other words, every person in the management or transaction of his business must bring himself up to that standard of intelligence and care which ordinarily prudent men are accustomed to exercise under similar conditions. When he has done this he is acquit of any liability resulting from his acts. The negligent acts cannot be the proximate cause of an injury to one unless, under all the circumstances ordinary prudence would have admonished the person sought to be charged with negligence that his acts or omissions would result in injury to some one. The general test as to whether negligence is the proximate cause of an accident is said...