Heyer v. Jersey Cent. Power & Light Co.

• Decision Date: 14 October 1929
• Docket Number: No. 49.,49.
• Citation: 147 A. 452
• Parties: HEYER v. JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

147 A. 452

HEYER

v. JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT CO.

No. 49.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Oct. 14, 1929.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Archie F. Heyer, administrator ad prosequendum of the estate of Clarence B. Heher, deceased, against the Jersey Central Power & Light Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Collins & Corbin, of Jersey City (Edward A. Markley and Charles W. Broadhurst, both of Jersey City), for appellant.

Ward Kremer, of Asbury Park, for respondent.

BODINE, J. The defendant appeals from the judgment in favor of the plaintiff. Plaintiff's intestate was a mason, 22 years of age at the time of his death. He was working on the roof of a building on the north side of Monmouth street, Red Bank. The building was of re-enforced concrete construction. The defendant had moved its wires before the construction commenced, and was informed of the size of the proposed building, and had an opportunity to safely place the wires. On the roof there was a fire wall about 2 1/2 feet high. Decedent, with another workman, was rigging a derrick to hoist plaster from the street to the roof. The rigging consisted of attaching to a beam about 15 feet long, and extending out from the fire wall about 2 feet, a hook by means of a wire so that a pulley could be fastened to the hook.

Above the fire wall, and parallel with it, were three high-tension wires, property of the defendant. These wires were supported by poles in the street, and carried 33,000 volts. The nearest wire to the building was a little more than 5 1/2 feet above the fire wall and about 5 feet from the side of the building.

While the decedent was leaning out over the fire wall, attaching the hook to the beam by means of the wire, there was a sudden report like a gun—the high-tension wires, or at least one of them, blazed and smoked. The decedent fell back, and his clothes around his shoulders were observed to be on fire. He died as a result of the occurrence.

"It is clear that the inference that plaintiff's intestate was killed by a current of electricity transmitted by the defendant company through the wire in question * * * would not establish defendant's liability to answer in damages for the death. It must further appear that, in transmitting the current through the wire in the condition it then was, the defendant company was negligent in some duty which it owed to the deceased." Brooks v. Consolidated Gas Co., 70 N. J. Law, 211, 213, 57 A. 396, 397.

The plaintiff below called as a witness Smith, an electrician, who had studied the theory and practice of electrical lines, and who had worked as a lineman for the last 7 or 8 years. This witness described the defendant's wires. They were of bare copper wire fastened by porcelain pole petticoat insulators on wooden cross-arms to wooden poles. Insulation of the wires themselves is not usual. The trial...