Ga. Power Co v. Kinard

• Decision Date: 04 September 1933
• Docket Number: No. 22829.,22829.
• Citation: 170 S.E. 688,47 Ga.App. 483
• Parties: GEORGIA POWER CO. v. KINARD.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

47 Ga.App. 483

170 S.E. 688

GEORGIA POWER CO.

v.KINARD.

No. 22829.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

Sept. 4, 1933.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Hall County; B. F. Whelchel, Judge.

Suit by Elsie Kinard against the Georgia Power Company. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and defendant brings error.

Reversed.

Colquitt, Parker, Troutman & Arkwright, of Atlanta, Edgar B. Dunlap, of Gainesville, and Erwin, Erwin & Nix, of Athens, for plaintiff in error.

Wheeler & Kenyon, of Gainesville, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, Presiding Judge.

[1-51 1. "A power company, in furnishing electricity to patrons, with respect to employees of the latter rightfully on the premises of the patron and likely to come into contact with wires carrying the current supplied, is bound to use ordinary care, which demands that the power company shall use such diligence in preventing injuries to such employees as is commensurate with the danger involved in the use and control of such a subtle and deadly agency as electricity." Denson v. Ga. Ry. & Elec. Co., 135 Ga. 132 (1 [a]), 68 S. E. 1113. But "where wiring or other electrical appliances on private premises are owned and controlled by the owner or occupant of the premises, a company which merely furnishes electricity is not responsible for the insulation or condition of the wiring or appliances, and is not liable for injuries caused by their defective condition, to the owner or occupant, or to third persons on the premises, except that the rule thus stated seems to be properly qualified to the extent that, whenever current is supplied with actual knowledge on the part of one supplying it of the defective and dangerous condition of his customer's appliances, he will be charged with liability for injuries occasioned by supplying current for use on such defective wires or appliances." Hatcher v. Ga. Power Co., 40 Ga. App. 830 (1), 151 S. E 696, 697. "The weight of authority supports the view that, if the appliances of the customer are not constructed or owned by the company generating the electricity, the company is not bound to inspect the same, and it is not liable for an injury that is received by reason of defects in such appliances, where it has no knowledge of the defect, though the electricity which causes the injury comes from its plant." Scott v. Rome Ry. & Light Co., 22 Ga. App. 474, 475, 96 S. E. 569; 20 C. J. 364, 365.

In the absence of such actual knowledge, "its responsibility ends when the connection is properly made under proper conditions, and it delivers the current in a manner which will protect both life and property." 9 R. C. L. 1204 (§ 15). This, however, does not relieve the company from the duty of using proper devices and safeguards to prevent dangerous currents from passing into buildings of patrons and there causing damage; and, where the proximate efficient cause of an injury is the admission, through negligence of the company, of a high and dangerous current into secondary wires of a patron, intended only for a low voltage and harmless current, the company will be held liable. City of Thomasville v. Jones, 17 Ga. App. 625 (2 [b]), 87 S. E. 923; 20 C. J. 344. See, also, on the general question of liability for injuries on property of third persons, case notes, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 1175-1178.

2. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur has been frequently applied in electrical cases, where the circumstances of the injury were in themselves sufficient to create an inference of negligence, such as where there were shown an injury which must reasonably be attributed to the electrical force owned or controlled by the defendant power company and facts reasonably indicating negligence by the company in the proper safeguarding or handling of such force, as the proximate cause of the injury, at or in connection with the place and properties where it occurred, which, at least as to the wiring, appliances, or devices causing the injury, were under the exclusive management or control of the defendant, unless (where otherwise managed or controlled) the facts themselves indicated that the injury was actually caused, not from negligence in connectionwith such wiring, appliances, or devices, but from negligence in improperly sending an excessive and dangerous amount of current through the same. The doctrine, however, has no application where electricity is furnished to a system on premises of another who himself or through another exclusively installed the wiring and appliances, and himself operates and controls them, in the absence of evidence that the injury was due to the sending of an excessive and dangerous current into the building. The rule is also without effect where the injury occurs from a defective appliance under the management or control of the plaintiff or another, or "where an unexplained accident may have been attributable to one of several causes, for some of which the defendant is not responsible." Peters v. Lynchburg Light & Traction Co., 108 Va. 333, 61 S. E. 745, 747, 22 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1188, 1189 and case notes, page 1183; 20 C. J. 380-383; 9 R. C. L. 1221 (§ 30).

3. While it is true that in electrical as well as other injury cases questions of negligence, including what was the proximate cause of the injury, and to what and whose fault the injury should be attributed, are generally questions of fact and not of law, that "the mere fact that the injury would not and could not have resulted by the defendant's acts alone will not of itself be taken to limit and define (an) intervening agency as constituting the proximate cause, " and that one of several joint tort-feasors may be sued alone; yet, in order to hold the defendant liable, it must be shown "either that the act complained of was the sole occasion of the injury, or that it put in operation other causal forces, such as were the direct, natural, and probable consequences of the original act, or that the intervening agency could have reasonably been anticipated or foreseen by the [defendant as the] original wrongdoer" (Gillespie v. Andrews, 27 Ga. App. 509, 10S S. E. 906), although it is not necessary that the defendant should have foreseen in specific detail the manner in which a person might suffer injury. Negligence of one person may be the proximate cause of injury, although the negligence of another was a conjunctive or...