Mobile Electric Co. v. Fritz
| Decision Date | 15 November 1917 |
| Docket Number | 1 Div. 979 |
| Citation | 77 So. 235,200 Ala. 692 |
| Parties | MOBILE ELECTRIC CO. v. FRITZ. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Dec. 24, 1917
Appeal from Circuit Court, Mobile County; Saffold Berney, Judge.
Action by Emile F. Fritz, as administrator, etc., against the Mobile Electric Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Palmer Pillans, of Mobile, for appellant.
Harry T. Smith & Caffey, of Mobile, for appellee.
The action is under the homicide statute to recover damages for defendant's wrongfully causing the death of plaintiff's intestate. The wrong relied upon for cause of the death was defendant's allowing a heavily and dangerously charged electric wire to fall, or remain down, in a public street in the city of Mobile, with which wire deceased, while using the street, came in contact, and was thereby killed. One count relied upon wantonness in defendant's allowing the wire to fall or to remain down while it was so dangerously charged with electricity; while the other charged only simple negligence.
There was a severe wind and electric storm in Mobile on the night of the accident and to it, as an act of vis major, for which the defendant was not responsible, the defendant ascribed the falling of the wire, setting up lack of knowledge and opportunity to remove the wire or to cut out the circuit before the fatal accident happened. It is sufficient to say that much evidence was offered by both parties on the trial upon this issue, and resulted in a finding thereon by the jury in favor of the plaintiff, without any error of law intervening, sufficient to set aside the finding. The trial resulted in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $17,500.
Defendant moved for a new trial on the grounds, among others, that there was no evidence to support a finding under the wanton count, and, second, that the verdict was excessive in amount. This motion was heard, and was denied by the trial court, and defendant appeals, assigning errors as to the ruling on the motion for a new trial. As both questions were raised and insisted upon in the motion for a new trial, and they are the main if not the only questions insisted upon by appellant as for error, we will proceed to treat these two questions.
While there is much evidence in the record tending to acquit defendant of all wrong, wanton or negligent, yet there is much which, if believed by the jury, would support a verdict under either count. Of course wantonness is scarcely susceptible of direct proof, and must generally be presumed or inferred from proof of other facts and from all the attending circumstances; and we are not prepared to say that the jury were wholly unauthorized to infer wantonness from the conduct of the defendant's agents as alleged in the wanton count.
When an act is done or omitted under circumstances and conditions known to the person that his conduct is likely to or probably will result in injury, and through reckless indifference to consequences, or consciously and intentionally one does a wrongful act, or omits an act which he ought to have done the injury inflicted may be said to be wanton. In such cases it is, however, essential that the act done or omitted should be done or omitted with a knowledge and present consciousness that injury would probably result, and this consciousness is not to be implied from a mere knowledge of the dangerous situation. M.J. & K.C.R.R. Co. v. Smith, 153...
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Parke v. Dennard
...Lt. & Power Co. v. Thombs, 204 Ala. 678, 87 So. 205; Alabama Power Co. v. Talmadge, 207 Ala. 86, 93 So. 548. As in the case of Mobile Electric Co. v. Fritz, supra, evidence for plaintiff justified a finding by the jury of the highest degree of culpability, and by their verdict defendant's s......
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Airheart v. Green, 8 Div. 904
...to others similarly minded.' Liberty National Life Ins. Co. v. Weldon, Ala.1957, 100 So.2d 696, 713. See also Mobile Electric Co. v. Fritz, 200 Ala. 692, 77 So. 235; City of Mobile v. Reeves, 249 Ala. 488, 31 So.2d 688; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Phillips, 202 Ala. 502, 80 So. It is the conc......
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Gilbert v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., LOUIS-SAN
...graded according to the degree of culpability." Airheart v. Green, supra, 267 Ala. at 693, 104 So.2d at 691; see Mobile Elec. Co. v. Fritz, 1917, 200 Ala. 692, 77 So. 235, 236. The plaintiff's theory in this case was subsequent negligence, which closely parallels the doctrine of discovered ......
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Louis Pizitz Dry Goods Co v. Yeldell
...unless the verdict is 'induced or reached on account of prejudice, passion, or other improper motive or cause.' Mobile Electric Co. v. Fritz, 200 Ala. 692, 693, 77 So. 235, 236. The case was argued here on the assumption that its scope was thus limited and we so interpret the statute. Its c......