Jordan v. Malden Elec. Co.

• Citation: 138 N.E. 536,244 Mass. 342
• Parties: JORDAN v. MALDEN ELECTRIC CO.
• Decision Date: 03 March 1923
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

244 Mass. 342

138 N.E. 536

JORDAN

v.MALDEN ELECTRIC CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

March 3, 1923.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Middlesex County; Franklin T. Hammond, Judge.

Action of tort by Lyman B. Jordan, administrator, against the Malden Electric Company for the death of plaintiff's intestate while on the roof of defendant's electric light plant. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

At the conclusion of the evidence, defendant moved in writing for a directed verdict. The court denied the motion and submitted the case to the jury under instructions not excepted to. The facts concerning the accident are stated in the opinion.

Robert W. Mason and Eugene C. Upton, both of Boston, for plaintiff.

Walter I. Badger, Chester M. Pratt, and Louis C. Doyle, all of Boston, for defendant.

BRALEY, J.

It is contended by the defendant that a verdict should have been directed because there was no evidence warranting the jury in finding that the intestate exercised ordinary care or that his death was caused by the company's negligence. The plaintiff's intestate, a carpenter and jobber, had been employed by the defendant on the roof of its electric light plant in work connected with bases and forms for mushroom porcelain bushings to set in, and on openings through the roof, while his men worked on the iron base which was to support the arrestors. But thereafter he had not been on the roof until the day of the accident. The defendant, however, had in the meantime installed two sets of lightning arrestors connected with its high tension system for the distribution of electricity and ‘to provide against the sudden force of excessive current caused by lightning or other abnormal conditions.’ The steel tanks of the arrestors were charged at intervals during the day with electricity and electrolite by an employee apparently going to the roof and pulling a pendant chain at the easterly end of each set of arrestors, which caused the excess of the static electric current to flow through the electrolite and thence by a discharge pipe to the ground.

‘From the top of each tank running upward was a copper rod or conductor solid and about one inch in diameter. Three of these conductors in each set of arrestors severally ran to one side of what was known as a horn gap, one lines came up through the roof bushings and lines camp up through the roof bushings and were severally carried from the bushings to the other side of the horn gap by copper rods or conductors similar in size to those running up from the tanks. The horn gap was so spaced that any current in excess of the normal amount for which the line was constructed would jump across the space or gap between the two horns or small rods and enter the tanks dispersing itself over the cones and passing thence by spiral wires to the ground.’

To enable the operator to reach the chain more easily the company contemplated building a platform to be used with the arrestors, and had requested the intestate to submit an estimate for the work, as well as to examine the cement and covering of the ‘middle westerly roof bushing,’ the condition of which might be such as to cause water to drip into the plant from the under side of the roof. In response to this request...