Linton v. Weymouth Light & Power Co.

• Decision Date: 20 May 1905
• Parties: LINTON v. WEYMOUTH LIGHT & POWER CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

188 Mass. 276

74 N.E. 321

LINTON v. WEYMOUTH LIGHT & POWER CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

May 20, 1905

COUNSEL

Geo R. Swasey and Albert P. Worthen, for plaintiff.

John and Jas. A. Lowell, for defendant.

OPINION

LATHROP J.

We are of opinion in this case that there was evidence sufficient to submit to the jury, both on the question of negligence on the part of the defendant and of due care on the part of the plaintiff. The wire with which the plaintiff came in contact was one for supplying power for house lighting, and carried an alternating current of 3,500 volts, while a current as high as 1,000 volts was dangerous to life, as the superintendent of the defendant company testified. At the place of the accident the wire, though supported on poles ran through branches of trees, and this, the superintendent testified, was a very unsatisfactory way; that the limbs are apt to come in contact with the wires and rub off the insulation; that the insulation of this wire was of rubber cloth covering; and that it would not take a very long time to rub off this covering. There was also evidence that there was a better method of insulation when wires went through trees, and the question whether better insulation should have been used was for the jury. There was evidence that a wire which the jury might have found to be the same wire, had broke 325 feet from the place of the accident, and that the superintendent had been notified by telephone of this break 10 minutes before the accident, and had promised to send a man to attend to it. The superintendent denied receiving this communication, but whether he did receive it or not was a question for the jury; and it was also a question for them whether, if he did receive it, he ought at once to have shut off the power. There was evidence that at the place of the accident the wire hung down over the gutter in a loop within five or six feet of the ground. In Thomas v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 100 Mass. 156, it was said by Mr. Justice Hoar: 'The fact that a telegraph wire is found swinging across a public way at such a height as to obstruct and endanger ordinary travel is in itself unexplained and unaccounted for, some evidence of neglect on the part of the company whose duty it is to keep it in a proper and safe position, and should have been submitted to the jury.' There are other grounds upon which the plaintiff contends that the...