Heidt v. Southern Tel. & Tel. Co.
| Decision Date | 25 March 1905 |
| Citation | 50 S.E. 361,122 Ga. 474 |
| Parties | HEIDT v. SOUTHERN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Where a telephone wire is broken by a storm which could not have been anticipated or reasonably foreseen, and falls upon an electric light wire which is charged with a heavy and dangerous current of electricity, and which has become grounded by the falling of a tree from the effects of the same storm, the liability of the owners of the respective wires depends upon the negligence in the construction and maintenance of the wires, where the injury occurs immediately after the falling of the wires, and neither company has a reasonable time to discover and remove the danger.
2. An ordinance granting a franchise to a telephone company to construct and maintain its lines upon the streets and alleys of a city, which provides that, wherever it is necessary for the telephone wires to cross any electric light wire, a space of not less than three feet shall be preserved between the former and the latter, and, if it shall be necessary to raise or lower the wires in order to preserve the distance, the expense thereof shall be borne by the company doing the latest construction, and proper guards are to be placed and maintained (assuming its reasonableness), imposes the duty of erecting and maintaining guards upon the company doing the latest construction.
3. Where the undisputed evidence shows that, at the point of crossing where the alleged contact of wires occurred, the electric light company first constructed its wires, the ordinance was not applicable to the electric light company and its reasonableness or unreasonableness was not an issuable fact as to it, and the plaintiff has no cause of complaint of the submission of such issue to the jury.
4. If the abrasion of the insulation of the electric light wires alleged in the petition was not a proximate or efficient cause of the injury, such want of insulation would not be a basis of the plaintiff's recovery.
5. Where joint and several tort feasors are sued in the same action, and a recovery is had against one, errors peculiarly affecting the liability of the one against whom the verdict was found, and which do not affect the liability of the other, are not a ground for the granting of a new trial to the plaintiff as to the one in whose favor the verdict is rendered.
6. As to the defendant company, which the jury, by its verdict absolved from liability for the tort complained of, the evidence did not demand a finding in favor of the plaintiff.
Error from Superior Court, Ware County; T. A. Parker, Judge.
Action by Amelia Heidt against the Southern Telephone & Telegraph Company and another. From the judgment rendered, plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Leon A Wilson, Jno. W. Bennett, and Toomer & Reynolds, for plaintiff in error.
Osborne & Lawrence, J. L. Sweat, and W. G. Brantley, for defendants in error.
About 7:45 o'clock on the night of May 15, 1902, Redding E. Heidt, while walking upon the sidewalk on the northeast side of Jane street, in the city of Waycross, came in contact with a telephone wire lying upon the sidewalk. This wire was charged with a powerful current of electricity. Heidt was knocked down, and, as a result of the shock and the burns he received, he subsequently died. His widow, Amelia Heidt, brought an action for damages against the Southern Telephone & Telegraph Company and the Satilla Manufacturing Company, alleging that the death of her husband was brought about by their negligence, the telephone wire having been charged with a deadly current of electricity by reason of the fact that it had been allowed to come into contact with the wires of the Satilla Manufacturing Company, which owned and operated an electric lighting system in the city. The plaintiff sought to recover damages in the sum of $30,000; averring that her husband had been earning $103.50 per month as foreman of the shops of a railway company, and might reasonably have expected promotion to a position paying $150 per month or more. The relative location of the wires and poles of the defendant companies along Jane street and in the immediate vicinity was fully set forth in her petition. The negligence with which the Satilla Manufacturing Company was charged was (1) that it had failed to erect and maintain safe and proper guard wires, or other appropriate protecting devices, between its lighting wires and the wires of the telephone company, in order to avoid contact between them; (2) that the lighting wires were not, at the point of contact, properly insulated; (3) that these wires had, without necessity, been carried across Jane street to the northwest side thereof, by improperly locating a "transformer" on the northwest side of that street, thus bringing them under the telephone wires; (4) that the lighting wires were strung in "dangerous proximity to, and within an unlawful distance of, the wires" of the telephone company; and (5) that at the point of contact the Satilla Manufacturing Company had run its wires through and against a small sycamore tree, thus causing them to be rubbed and chafed by the branches of the tree, and the insulation to be worn off. The telephone company was alleged to have been guilty of negligence, in that (1) it failed to erect and maintain suitable guard wires or other devices to keep its wires from coming into contact with the lighting wires; (2) its wires on Jane street were loosely and carelessly drawn through the tops of trees and against their branches, and were thus exposed to constant strain by the swaying of the wires and the limbs of the trees; (3) the telephone posts were placed 170 feet apart, whereas ordinary prudence required that they should be not exceeding 120 feet apart, the wires strung along them being too small and weak to stand the strain imposed upon them when connected with poles 170 feet apart; and (4) at the point where the contact occurred the telephone wires were placed "across, above, and within a dangerous and unlawful distance of the electric lighting wires of the Satilla Manufacturing Company--that is to say, at a distance ranging from six inches to two and a half feet above said wires." The plaintiff further charged that the defendant companies were concurrently negligent in thus erecting and maintaining their wires at the point where the contact occurred, and either had actual notice of the condition of affairs at that point, or could have known thereof by the exercise of ordinary prudence, and that their negligence in this respect was the proximate cause of the death of her husband, and they were jointly and severally liable to her; the death of her husband being attributable to no fault on his part.
By way of an amendment to her petition, the plaintiff alleged that she was unable to state in what manner the telephone wire became disconnected and fell across the sidewalk, but that the proximate cause of the injury sustained by her husband was the defendants' violation of a valid municipal ordinance of the city of Waycross, adopted on December 29, 1896, which provided that: "Whenever it is necessary for the telephone wires and any electric wires in said city to cross each other, a space of not less than three feet shall be preserved between the former and the latter; and if it shall be necessary to raise or lower the wires in order to preserve the distance, the expense thereof shall be borne by the company or party doing the latest construction; and appropriate guards are to be placed and maintained in manner just hereinbefore stated." Both companies were charged with being concurrently and severally negligent in maintaining their wires at a distance apart which was less than that prescribed by this ordinance, and in permitting their wires to come into contact, so that the wire which fell across the sidewalk became charged with a deadly current of electricity.
The telephone company filed an answer in which it denied that it was guilty of the acts of negligence charged against it, and averred that the death of the plaintiff's husband was the result of an act of God; there having been "a mighty storm which broke over the city of Waycross on the evening of May 15, 1902, with irresistible force, and which, in its progress, broke the wires of this defendant's telephone system, and, before defendant knew of the break or had a reasonable opportunity to learn of the same, the injury to the deceased occurred." In answer to the allegations set out in the amendment to the petition, the telephone company averred that the municipal ordinance referred to "was intended only to require the wires of telephone and electric companies to be suspended and maintained in such manner that electricity could not escape by induction from one wire into another, and that, if the said ordinance bears the construction that guard wires or any other kind of guard or device [must be erected] to prevent contact between one wire and another where they cross, in the event of a break or parting of wires, [it] is void, because it is unreasonable, and provides an impossible, unnecessary, and dangerous requirement."
The Satilla Manufacturing Company also filed a separate answer; therein denying the negligence charged against it, and insisting that the "death of R. E. Heidt was the result of an unusually severe storm." It further answered that prior to his injury it had no knowledge or notice of the municipal ordinance relied on by the plaintiff, and it denied the validity of the same.
The case went to trial, and resulted in a verdict whereby the Satilla Manufacturing Company was exonerated from all charges of negligence against it, and the telephone company was held liable to respond in damages to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial