Hollis v. Kansas City Light and Power Co.
| Decision Date | 26 June 1920 |
| Parties | BERTHA D. HOLLIS, Respondent, v. KANSAS CITY LIGHT AND POWER CO., Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. Daniel E. Bird, Judge.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Case reversed and remanded.
Gamble Kennard & Trusty for respondent.
John H Lucas and Wm. C. Lucas for appellant.
Plaintiff's action is for damages on account of the death of her husband who was killed on August 10, 1917, by one of defendant's wires charged with a heavy current of electricity. Judgment for $ 6000 was obtained and defendant has appealed.
Deceased was foreman over, and the engineer in charge of and operating a steam shovel in, defendant's coal yard situated on the south side of and immediately adjoining Guinotte Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri. Said Avenue runs east and west and double street car tracks are in the center thereof, the north one being the west bound and the south the east bound track. The avenue was sixty feet wide from property line to property line and the roadway thereof, thirty-six feet in width, was brick-paved and curbed, thus leaving south of the south curb a sidewalk space of twelve feet, but at the time and place in question no sidewalk had been constructed thereon. The east end of the coal yard was bounded by a north-and-south switch track of the C and A. Railroad; and a short distance west of and parallel to this railway track was an unconnected, independent track on which the steam shovel stood and was moved along thereon to various points necessary to reach the coal desired to be shoveled. As stated, this steam shovel track was not connected with any other track, but began at some point in the southern part of the coal yard and went north (possibly 220 feet) to a point from three to six feet south of the curb line on Guinotte Avenue. The coal was piled on both sides of this short piece of shovel track, but the far greater rick was on the east side thereof and the pile of coal went north up to Guinotte Avenue and, as we gather from the record, extended over into and on the sidewalk space thereof. Defendant's coal coming in on the C. and A. railroad was dumped on the ground so as to form this rick east of the steam shovel; and the latter was used partly to load the coal into defendant's cars when they came into the yard on the "Y" hereinafter described, and partly to transfer it from the pile on the east of the shovel-track to the pile on the west side thereof. This steam shovel consisted of a flat car on which was mounted a turn-table having thereon an engine which, by steam power under the control of the engineer, operated a crane or "boom" forty-six feet long, from the end of which hung the shovel or "clam-shell" suspended by a cable running over a pulley. The power of the engine could be used either to move the flat car forward or backward on the shovel track, or in turning the crane around from front to back or from side to side on the turn-table, or in raising and lowering the crane in the filling and emptying of the clam-shell. On Guinotte Avenue were a number of electric and telephone wires; and at a point almost due north of the north end of the shovel track and about eight inches south of the south curb line on Guinotte Avenue (and therefore in the sidewalk space), were two and perhaps three poles, on one of which was a wire of defendant's carrying a current of 2300 volts of electricity. This wire was perhaps twenty feet from the ground, and after coming west to said pole continued on west a distance of about 122 feet, at the same height above the ground and just south of the curb line, to a pole located about the same distance south of the curb line as the other one. About twelve feet east of this pole was a dedicated alley the north end of which, at the south edge of the paved roadway of the Avenue, was marked by the curb turning south in rounded corners and proceeding south for a few feet, and into this mouth the paying extended south for a short distance. In this paved portion of the alley and about ten feet south of the mouth thereof was a manhole fitted with an iron lid. About twelve or thirteen feet east of the alley and close to the curb line stood another pole carrying some kind of a wire presumably a telephone wire. And on the northern street car track, at a point north of the alley, a switch track started in a curve to the southeast until it finally reached a point in the coal yard where it turned due south and went on to some unknown distance therein. The point where this curved switch cut the south curb line of Guinotte Avenue was a little over seventeen feet east of where the last mentioned pole stood. On the south street car track, at a point practically north of the north end of the shoveltrack and of the first pole herein above mentioned, a similar switch started in a curve to the southwest joining the other curved switch in the coal yard at the point where they both went south, the two curved switches thus forming a "Y" by means of which a car on the south street car track could go east past the east switch, then back around to the southwest and south on the coal yard and be loaded with coal and then go forward to the north and west, on the west prong of the "Y," and get upon the west-bound track, thus leaving the coal yard in that manner. It was fifty-nine feet from the first pole hereinabove mentioned west to the west prong of the "Y."
The deceased had been a locomotive engineer, and since the previous March had operated defendant's electric crane or shovel, but the night before the tragedy a steam shovel had been moved out to the yard to be used in its place. This, however, does not appear to be a matter of great importance as a steam crane and an electric crane are "handled similarly," the former having perhaps a few more levers. Deceased, as engineer of said crane, had an assistant named Hunt and the two handled the steam shovel and did the work of shoveling the coal.
About 7 o'clock in the morning of August 10, 1917, deceased and his assistant, preparatory to begin shoveling coal, started to move the steam shovel north along its track in order to place it at the spot desired. It was slightly down grade to the north on the shovel track. The crane or boom, slanting upwards, was pointed north and, before starting to move the shovel, deceased did not turn the crane around to the south; and, in the course of the movement of the shovel north, the huge machine got beyond control, and the helper, seeing this, jumped off to get a railroad tie to "chock" or block it. Before he could find the tie and do this, the machine ran north along the track until the crane, sticking up northward into the air and in front of the machine, touched or ran into the wire hereinabove specifically described as running from the pole near the north end of the shovel track west of 122 feet to the pole west of the aforesaid alleymouth. The contact of the steel boom with the wire formed a circuit and the wire burned in two. This occurred at a point about two feet west of the pole standing at the north end of the shovel track and the portion of the wire, running west to the west pole, fell across another wire and then slid off of same and fell to the ground. In this position it ran from the top of the pole west of the alley-mouth down to the ground in an easterly direction across the alley, over the manhole, past the pole standing twelve feet east of the alley, and then curved out in a northeasterly direction across the west prong of the aforesaid "Y" and then turned north and west and then back around to the southwest toward the last mentioned pole again, thus forming a sort of loop running across the sidewalk space and out into the paved roadway over the said west prong of the "Y" and back again.
When the crane broke the wires and this one fell, deceased backed the machine to the south and out of the wires and stopped, then got off the machine and walked over to a point close to the pole twelve feet east of the alley and there, facing north, stooped over and picked up the wire with one hand; he straightened up, took hold of it with the other hand and when he did this, having the wire in both hands, exclaimed "Oh" and fell forwards on his face. Two men, walking east along the north side of Guinotte Avenue, saw the occurrence and ran over to him, calling for the assistant at the crane. A dry board was secured, and with it the deceased body was turned over and the wire pushed away from him and pulled through his hands. He was dead. The point where he picked up the wire was about a foot from the curb and about seventy-five feet distant from and west of the crane. He took hold of the wire a short distance from the end thereof.
Plaintiff's evidence as to the tragedy consists of the two men who were walking east at the time as above stated; and the first they saw of the entire occurrence was when deceased was walking west, about six feet from the curbing, toward the point where he picked up the wire and was electrocized. Plaintiff's evidence reveals nothing occurring prior to that time, nothing relative to the burning in two or breaking of the wire or of anything else until deceased started and was on his way to the fatal spot.
The attempted "spotting" or placing of the machine further north, its getting beyond deceased's control because the brakes failed to work in some way, the running of the boom into and breaking of the wires, all came from defendant's witness Hunt, deceased's assistant. It was, however, elicited on cross examination of one of plaintiff's witnesses that at the time of the tragedy the steam shovel was standing with its crane to the north, and as Hunt says deceased moved the shovel north...
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