Egan v. Trenton Gas & Electric Co.

• Decision Date: 23 June 1921
• Docket Number: No. 21395.,21395.
• Citation: 233 S.W. 239
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: EGAN v. TRENTON GAS &ELECTRIC CO.

233 S.W. 239

EGAN v. TRENTON GAS &ELECTRIC CO.

No. 21395.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 23, 1921.

Motion for Rehearing Denied July 19, 1921.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Grundy County; L. B. Woods, Judge.

Suit by Ida Egan against the Trenton Gas & Electric Company. From judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Taylor, Chasnoff & Willson, of St. Louis, and A. G. Knight, of Trenton, for appellant. Platt Hubbell and Geo. H. Hubbell, both of Trenton, for respondent.

WALKER, J.

The plaintiff brought this suit in the circuit court of Grundy county to recover damages for the death of her husband, due to the alleged negligence of the defendant. A trial was had in September, 1917, resulting in a verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $8,000, from which defendant has appealed. The defendant is a corporation conducting a light and power plant at the city of Trenton. Samuel Egan, the deceased, had been in the employ of the defendant as an electrician for 9 or 10 years prior to his death. He had assisted in the building and construction of defendant's system, by which it distributed electricity to Trenton and the town of Laredo, some 12 or 13 miles distant. At the time of the construction of the line to Laredo and the connection of same with defendant's system, Egan worked on the lightning arresters at defendant's place, his duties requiring his presence at times in or on the metal tower or elevated steel framework erected on the south wall of the building covering and inclosing the machinery which generated the electric current distributed by the defendant. This tower was about 25 feet high, and its purpose was to afford a means by which the wires carrying the electric current to Trenton and Laredo could be connected with the machinery which generated the current in the building. Three wires of very high voltage or power were used to convey the current to Laredo. These wires entered the top of this tower and ran down through current transformers to the motors where the electricity was generated. The surface of these wires was not insulated, the voltage being so high that insulation was deemed useless. At the time of the accident, Egan was acting under orders from the president of the company which directed him to "change leads entering old electric plant to new oil engine house."

This order, without more, is cryptic to the casual reader, but there seems to have been no difficulty in its interpretation by the deceased and his coemployes. Preparatory to a compliance with this order six holes had been drilled through the south wall of the building under the eaves through which certain wires from the tower which stood over that portion of the wall were to be conducted. It was on the roof of the building above which the tower stood and over the holes in the wall that the accident occurred. At about 10 o'clock in the forenoon of the day of his death, Egan came into the engine room and directed another employe to cut out the current on the Laredo line. This was done, and it withdrew the current from all of the wires in the tower. Egan and one Applegate then went up into the tower and disconnected certain wires, on which there was at the time no current, which were to be spliced and connected in compliance with the order given to them. This done, Egan returned to the engine room, and directed the current be turned on the Laredo wires. He stood and watched the dial of the ammeter, or indicator, until it showed that the current was or at its full power, and then went to his midday meal. In the afternoon Egan and Applegate resumed their work in "changing the leads." The latter went to the top of the tower, having in his hands a wire which was a part of a coil lying on the ground. He pulled the wire over the end of the tower, and let it down to Egan, who was on the roof of the building immediately over the holes that had been drilled in the wall. Wire was thus supplied from above by Applegate to Egan, who was passing a sufficient length through each hole to connect one end with the Trenton service wires at the top of the tower and the other end with the motors in the building. The current was on in full force on the Laredo wires, but not on the wires on which they were working. After Egan and Applegate had been thus employed for some time, the latter in splicing the pieces of wire to the Trenton service wires at the top of the tower, and the former in pushing the other end of the wires through the holes in the wall, Egan remarked to Applegate that he would go down and see if the other ends of the wires were long enough to splice to other wires inside of the building. Egan went down to the engine room, looked up at the ceiling where the holes were, and then returned to the roof. When he returned he said to Applegate, "they're all right," and laid down on the roof on his stomach and got ready to poke a wire through one of the holes. While in this position his head was inside the line of the framework of the tower, and he was looking down towards the eaves so that he could poke the wire through the porcelain insulator in the wall. The wire ha had hold of carried no current, but it was the nearest one of the loose wires to the high-voltage Laredo wires. While Applegate was scraping the insulation from one of the city service wires preparatory to connecting it with one of the loose wires that had been pushed through a hole in the wall, Egan, as he last saw him alive, was lying on his stomach, trying to put the sixth wire through one of the holes. A moment later there was a flash, and Applegate became momentarily unconscious. An employe in the engine room apprised—in what manner the record does not show—that something had occurred on the tower, ran to the switchboard, and turned off the current from all of the wires in the tower. Egan was found lying on the roof dead, in the same position as when he had last been seen by Applegate; he had the loose end of the wire he had been working with gripped in his hand, which was badly burned, and there was a burned place in the tar roof under his body. The insulation was burned off of the wire Egan held in his hand, and the wire was found adhering to what had been one of the live Laredo wires. This connection of the loose wire held by Egan with the live wire was the cause of his death.

I. Preliminary to the discussion of any other question that may be presented by this record, we are confronted with two inquiries of primary importance necessary to the de"" termination of this case, viz.: Was the deceased in the exercise of ordinary' care for his own safety at the time he received the fatal shock? if not, did his failure to exercise such care directly contribute to the cause of his death? In seeking a solution to these inquiries the well-established rules must be kept in mind, regulating the manner in which the relevant facts are to be considered in a case of this character and the conclusions that are authorized to be drawn therefrom, to the effect that not only is the plaintiff entitled to a consideration of all of the affirmative facts adduced in evidence to sustain her action, but as well to all reasonable inferences that may be drawn in her favor from such facts. The rule having thus been observed, a reversal will not be authorized unless it has been shown in a manner to satisfy the minds of reasonable men that the evidence conclusively establishes the contributory negligence...