Cooper v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1944
• Docket Number: 36198.
• Citation: 159 Kan. 67,151 P.2d 692
• Parties: COOPER v. SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE CO.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

151 P.2d 692

159 Kan. 67

COOPER v. SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE CO.

No. 36198.

Supreme Court of Kansas

September 30, 1944

Syllabus by the Court.

A telephone company was not liable for injuries to employee of a person to whom company furnished telephone service sustained by tripping over slack telephone cord dropped from her desk to floor of office in which she worked, because of negligence in installing such cord, unless company owed some duty to such employee which it failed to perform and was culpably negligent in respect to such duty

Plaintiff who went to work in an office with knowledge of slack telephone cord dropped to floor from her desk, assumed risk of tripping over such cord, and telephone company was not required to heed plaintiff's demand that telephone and cord be moved, since it had no business or contractual relation with her.

A person who, knowing all the danger of pursuing a given course and being under no compulsion to encounter it, voluntarily continues therein, cannot recover damages for injuries suffered.

In an action for damages for injuries sustained by plaintiff in tripping over a telephone cord which dropped from her desk to the floor in an office building where she worked, the facts alleged in her petition considered, and held that they did not state a cause of action against the telephone company which installed the telephone.

Appeal from District Court, Sedgwick County, Division No. 3; Grover Pierpont, Judge.

Action by Helen Cooper against Southwestern Bell Telephone Company for personal injuries. From a judgment overruling defendant's demurrer to plaintiff's petition defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded with instructions.

W. F Lilleston, of Wichita (S. L. Harris and Arthur S. Brewster both of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellant.

Robert C. Foulston, George Siefkin, Samuel E. Bartlett, George B. Powers, and C. H. Morris, all of Wichita, for appellee.

DAWSON Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment overruling defendant's demurrer to plaintiff's petition in an action for damages.

The pleaded facts were substantially these: Some time prior to March 25, 1943, plaintiff entered the employment of some person who had a suite of rented office rooms in Wichita. Beside the desk where plaintiff was to work there was a slack telephone cord that dropped to the floor. Plaintiff at once objected to the location of the telephone cord for the reason that anyone working thereabout was in danger of tripping over it.

She alleged that she and her employer repeatedly called the office of the telephone company which had installed the telephone cord, asking that the telephone be moved. In response to such repeated requests she was advised that no one except certain employees of the defendant could move the telephone and that a man would be sent to correct its dangerous position, but no such person was sent and the position of the telephone and its slack cord remained unchanged.

It was further alleged that shortly prior to March 25, 1943, an employee of the telephone company whose business it was to relocate telephones was working in an adjoining office in the same building; and that plaintiff and her employer took that employee into their office and asked him to move the telephone, and advised him that--

"They had served notice upon the company at numerous times and the company had failed and refused to correct the dangerous position. That said man then advised them that he could not move said phone without a 'work order' from the company and advised them to talk to some individual in the corporate defendant by the name of 'Knightly."'

Plaintiff alleged that she and her employer called Mr. Knightly, but that the company refused to move the telephone or change its dangerous position although it knew of its existence.

It was further alleged that on March 25, 1943, plaintiff caught her foot and shoe in the telephone cord and was thrown to the floor, and thereby suffered severe injuries, which caused her much pain and suffering, besides doctor's bills and loss of time--for all of which she prayed judgment in damages against the telephone company.

Defendant demurred to this petition on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against the telephone company. That demurrer was overruled; hence this appeal.

It hardly needs to be stated that to subject the telephone company to liability for plaintiff's injuries, it must have owed some duty to her which it failed to perform --that it must have been culpably negligent in some way in respect to such duty. But the telephone...