Edmonds v. Monongahela Valley Traction Co.
| Decision Date | 26 September 1916 |
| Citation | 78 W.Va. 714 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Eddie Edmonds v. Monongahela Valley Traction Co. |
In the erection and maintenance of its trolley wires carryingheavy currents of electricity, on or across a space over which telephone wires are strung and operated, an electric railway company is bound to make approved and effective provision against communication of its current to the telephone wires. (p. 716).
If its current escapes through or by means of such wires and causes injury to a person or to property in a highway or other place in which he or it may rightfully bo, the maxim, res ipsa loquitur, applies; and the occurrence of the injury by means of the current so diverted is evidence of negligence on the part of the railway company. To exonerate itself from such charge it must prove its adoption of approved and effective means to prevent such diversion. (p. 717).
Proof of an injury in a public road in such manner, by a telephone wire under which a trolley wire has been placed, at a distance of only about eight inches, an unexplained break in the former by reason of which it came into contact with the latter and former interference of these wires, causing injury to telephones and houses, to the knowledge of the railway company, make an issue proper for submission to a jury, as to whether the railway company was negligent in the maintenance and operation of its wires. (p. 717).
Whether a farmer inconversant with the subject of electricity, and inexperienced in the use thereof, is guilty of negligence in disconnecting a wire so charged from his douse and placing the end thereof in a public road, to prevent injury to his property and family, by methods indicative of utter lack of appreciation of its dangerous character, is a question proper for jury determination. (p. 717).
Error to Circuit Court, Harrison County.
Action by Eddie Edmonds against the Monongahela Valley Traction Company. There was a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error.
Affirmed.
Davis, Swartz &Templeman, for plaintiff in error.
Smith &Jackson, for defendant in error.
popfenbarger, judge:
The judgment complained of, standing on a verdict of a jury, is for the value of a horse killed in a public road, by contact with a telephone wire, heavily charged with electricity from the defendant company's trolley wire or high tension wire, or both, and disconnected from a farm dwelling house and thrown into the road by the owner of the house, to prevent injury to it and his family by reason of the charge of electricity it carried.
The grounds of defense are, (1), lack of proof of negligence on the part of the defendant; and, (2), if there is evidence of such negligence, conclusive proof of an intervening negligent or wrongful act of a third party, the farmer, constituting the proximate cause of the injury. These propositions were invoked by requests for instructions not given, objections to instructions given and a motion for a new trial.
Facts established and evidence tending to prove others render the first position manifestly untenable. Sometime before the construction of the defendant's electric railway and erection of its poles and wires, the People's Telephone Company, under permits given by the county courts of Lewis and Harrison counties, had put up short poles along a certain public highway and strung its telephone wires thereon. At certain places, the electric railway of the defendant, subsequently constructed, crossed the public highway on which the telephone lines were. At some of these crossings, if not all of them, the defendant's trolley wire carrying six hundred volts of electricity was placed only about eight inches below the telephone wires and its high tension wire carrying twenty two thousand volts, some distance above them. On several occasions ante-dating the occurrence which resulted in the death of plaintiff's horse, the heavy current from the defendant's wires, by contact or otherwise, so heavily charged the telephone wires that they burned out telephone instruments, set houses on fire and severely shocked persons endeavoring to disconnect the wires from their houses to prevent injury. This dangerous interference had been brought to the attention, of officers and agents of the defendant company, who had promised to take the telephone wires down and place them under the railway track at the expense of the railway company. The cost of repairing the injured telephone instruments or replacing, with new ones, those burned out, had been paid by the defendant company. On the occasion of the injury for which this action was brought, a telephone wire seems to have broken at or near aplace known as "Corley Stop," and fallen down on the trolley wire. There is no evidence of this fact except the statement of an employee of the telephone company, on cross-examination, that he had been told the line was then broken at that point. As this hearsay evidence was not objected to, the fact to which it relates may be regarded as conceded. However, there is no evidence tending to prove that the break was caused by a storm or any other agency beyond the control of the defendant; and, as the trolley wire was only about eight inches below the telephone wire, it is not improbable that the trolley pole sometimes raised the trolley wire sufheently to bring it into contact with the telephone wire, and this may have caused the break, if one occurred. That a trolley pole held in contact with the lower side of the trolley wire by a strong spring does raise it considerably, under certain conditions, is a matter of common knowledge of which the jury could take notice. It is generally known, also, that a continued or frequently repeated heavy electrical charge of a small wire will burn it in two or weaken it so as to cause it to break of its own weight.
The maxim, res ipsa loquitur, applies in cases of injury of this kind. Bice v. Electrical Co., 62 W. Va. 685; Snyder v. Electrical Co., 43 W. Va. 661. The agency of injury was the defendants electrical current, and the occurrence of the injury, itself and alone, raises a presumption of negligence on the part of the defendant which it was bound to repel by proof of adoption of all reasonable provisions for safety. Injury inflicted by an agency so dangerous in character as to bring it within the principle, res ipsa loquitur, is evidence of negligence on the part of the person using and controlling such agency. Persons using deadly electrical currents are bound to the exercise of a very high degree of care to prevent escape or diversion thereof to the injury of any person. In Snyder v. Electrical Co., Judge Brannon said: "I have ventured to call it demonstrative evidence of negligence; for, although the evidence must always be detailed by the mouths of witnesses, yet when the facts are thus disclosed, they either demonstrate negligence, conclusively, or tend to demonstrate it, subject to explanation by the defendant, showing that his conduct was consistent with due care." In this ease, the defendant made no effort to exonerate itself by proof of...
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