Ky. Utilities Co. v. Woodrum's Admr.

• Decision Date: 06 March 1928
• Citation: 224 Ky. 33
• Parties: Kentucky Utilities Company v. Woodrum's Administrator. Woodrum's Guardian v. Kentucky Utilities Company et al. Same v. Sandidge.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

224 Ky. 33

Kentucky Utilities Company v. Woodrum's Administrator.

Woodrum's Guardian v. Kentucky Utilities Company et al.

Same v. Sandidge.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Decided March 6, 1928.

1. Electricity. — Those engaged in the business of producing and transmitting electricity must use the highest degree of care and skill known which may be used under the same and similar circumstances not to injure other persons who may come in contact with the wires while following their business and calling, but electric companies are not liable as insurers for all injuries which may be caused by the operation of their business.

2. Electricity. — Where decedents and plaintiff, with consent of their landlord, cut down a tree which in falling struck and broke an electric transmission wire, and in attempting to move wire decedents were killed and plaintiff was injured by the electric current, held that, in absence of evidence showing that wire would have broken but for the falling of the tree, there was no evidence to go to jury on question whether faulty construction or maintenance of wire caused the accident.

3. Electricity. — In view of evidence that it is proper practice to reclose automatic oil switch after it has kicked out because of overloading of electric transmission line, without investigating cause of its opening, reclosing of such switch which had opened on breaking of transmission wire struck by falling tree cut down by decedents and plaintiff, resulting in decedents' death, and injury to plaintiff by coming in contact with the current, held not negligence for which company or its engineer, who closed switch, were liable, in absence of notice that reclosing of switch would probably cause injury or facts from which such notice could be inferred.

4. Electricity. — Electric company was not a trespasser in occupying public road of county with its poles and transmission wires.

5. Electricity. — If electric company erected and maintained its wires over another's land with his knowledge, it became a licensee, and

the landoner might have a cause of action against it based on en croachment.

6. Electricity. — Tenants, who with landlord's permission cut down tree on their premises, which in falling broke electric transmission wire passing along highway in front of their premises were not trespassers, where they did not intend that tree should fall and break wire.

Appeals from Lincoln Circuit. Court.

GORDON & LAURENT and K.S. ALCORN for Kentucky Utilities Company and Geo. Sandidge.

J.S. OWSLEY and L.L. WALKER for W.T. Woodrum's Adm'r, Arville E. Woodrum's Adm'r, and William Woodrum's Guardian.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE LOGAN.

Reversing in part and affirming in part.

These five appeals involve three cases that were instituted in the Lincoln circuit court. They were tried together in that court, and will be disposed of by one opinion. W.T. Woodrum and A.E. Woodrum were killed as the result of coming in contact with an electric wire running from Stanford to Hustonsville. Willie Woodrum was injured by coming in contact with the same wire. The defendant in each of the suits instituted was the Kentucky Utilities Company and George Sandidge, an engineer of the company. Marcus Moore, as administrator of William T. Woodrum, recovered a judgment against the Utilities Company for $2,000, and as administrator of Arville E. Woodrum he recovered a judgment for $3,000. In the case of Willie Woodrum against the same defendants, the judgment was in favor of both defendants. In the other two cases there was a judgment in each case in favor of George Sandidge. The Kentucky Utilities Company has appealed from the $2,000 judgment in favor of the administrator of William T. Woodrum and from the $3,000 judgment in favor of the administrator of Arville E. Woodrum. Willie Woodrum has appealed from the judgment in favor of the Kentucky Utilities Company and George Sandidge, and the administrator of William T. Woodrum and Arville E. Woodrum has appealed from the judgment in each case in favor of George Sandidge.

On the 3d day of April, 1926, William T. Woodrum and his two sons, Arville and Willie, were living on the farm of William Fields in Lincoln county in a tenant house. The farm was occupied and under the management and control of Marcus Moore. The farm was located at the junction of the Stanford and Hustonsville highway with the Milledgeville highway. In the yard of the premises where the Woodrums resided, there was a tree partly decayed, near the house where they lived.

They obtained the consent of Marcus Moore to cut the tree for firewood. They undertook to fell the tree parallel with the electric wires running along the Hustonsville highway in front of the premises and between the house and the electric wires. When the tree fell, a branch of it struck the electric wire nearest to the house and broke it. There were two wires strung on the poles distant from each other about 27 inches. It is not disputed that the falling of the tree was the cause of the breaking of the wire. When the wire broke, it did not fall to the ground, but sagged to within about 3 feet of the ground. The wire broke at a point just beyond a tree to which was attached a bracket and the breaking allowed the wire to slide through the bracket as the wire sagged until the broken end of the wire was caught in the bracket. The north wire of the transmission line came in close proximity to the tree to which the bracket was attached. The wire had come in contact with the tree frequently and to such an extent that a notch had been burned in the tree, which had from time to time interrupted the service of supplying electricity. The utilities company introduced evidence, however, to show that the condition of the wire in relationship to the tree had been remedied about two years before the accident by attaching a bracket to the tree and placing thereon an insulator and fastening the wire to the insulator with another wire. It is made to appear that the north wire was so attached to the bracket on the tree at the time of the accident. As we understand from the record, the wire broke at a point about 6 inches east of a pole, which stood approximately 77 feet from the west line of the house in which the Woodrums lived. This pole was located a little more than 10 feet beyond the tree to which the bracket was attached. The wire broke at a point a little more than 10 1/2 feet beyond the tree to which the bracket was fastened. The tree which was cut by the Woodrums stood something more than 14 feet from the transmission line, or rather from a point directly under the transmission line.

The only persons present at the time of the breaking of the wire were William T. Woodrum and his son Arville E. Woodrum, who were killed, Willie Woodrum who was injured, and Milford Moore. When the wire sagged, Willie Woodrum took hold of it and pulled it out from under the branches of the tree and laid it on top of some of the branches of the fallen tree. He also took a part of the wire to a post and laid it upon the post, thereby taking up some of the slack in the wire. At the time Willie was handling the wire, his father was trimming the fallen tree. The father walked under the wire and took hold of it before Willie laid it on the post. Milford Moore walked with Willie Woodrum to the post, and, while they were standing there, they heard the father, William T. Woodrum, fall. Both of his sons ran to him and seized hold of him in an effort to pull him away from the wire with which he was at the time in contact. William T. Woodrum was instantly killed, and when Arville took hold of him he was likewise killed. Willie, the other boy, was thrown back by the force of the electric shock. There was probably a space of four or five minutes from the time when the wire was first handled until the father came in contact with it and was killed. It seems self-evident that when William T. Woodrum first took hold of the wire as he passed under it and when Willie Woodrum handled it is was not charged with electricity. It was charged with electricity when the father came in contact with it the second time. Ordinarily the mere breaking of the wire does not take from it its energy, but the voltage fails to flow until a circuit is formed by something coming in contact with it to complete the circuit. If the wire had not been de-energized when it was broken, we see no reason why the first person to touch it would not have been killed. The probabilities are that the broken wire came in contact with the other wire, and that the line was de-energized through the working of an automatic oil switch located at the Standford plant. An oil switch operates automatically, and is in the nature of a fuse, which blows out whenever there is an "overload" of electricity on the circuit. When an "overload" is thrown on the circuit, the switch "kicks" out.

In the instant cases it was shown by the evidence that there were several switches on the board at the Stanford plant. There were separate switches for the separate lines and a main switch which affected all of the lines. If the switch of a particular line kicked out, it affected only that line, but, if the main switch kicked out, it affected every line going through the plant. It was established by the testimony that the main switch kicked out at the time of the breaking of the wire on the occasion in question. Sandidge, the engineer at the plant, was in the office. A pilot light in the office in the plant indicates that the electric current is flowing through the transmission lines, but, when the pilot light goes out, it indicates that the current is not flowing through the transmission lines. Sandidge received a telephone message from the office of the utilities company out in town informing him that the lights were out in the city. He then observed that the pilot light was out. He went from his office to the switchboard immediately and discovered that the...