Richmond v. Florida Power & Light Co.
| Decision Date | 09 May 1952 |
| Citation | 58 So.2d 687 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Parties | RICHMOND v. FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO. |
Martin Lemlich, Miami, for appellant.
E. F. P. Brigham, Thomas C. Britton, Miami, and Phillip Goldman, Tallahassee, for appellee.
Summary judgment was entered in favor of the appellee, and this appeal followed.
The utility company owned and maintained, along a street in the residential district of Hialeah, a line of wooden poles supporting uninsulated wires that transmitted electric current of high voltage. The appellant stood in his yard, a hundred feet away, and tested a 'Gibson Girl' emergency air rescue radio transmitter consisting partly of a box kite and a long copper wire, which served as a kite cord. In the process appellant's and appellee's wires came into contact, and the appellant was injured.
The appellant does not contend that the company should have insulated its wires, but that it should have taken the precaution of posting warning signs or 'placing * * * guards around such wires' or both.
We don't recede from the definition of the duty of manufacturers of electricity, announced in Escambia County Electric Light and Power Company v. Sutherland, 61 Fla. 167, 55 So. 83, 91, to 'do all that human care, vigilance, and foresight can reasonable do, consistent with the practical operation of its plant to protect those who use its electricity.' But we are unwilling to enlarge the duty so that such a company would be required to establish warning signs and guards to protect a peron who wishes to fly a kite under the circumstances shown in this record.
We enumerate these circumstances. Appellant admitted he knew that contact of the wire on his kite with a wire carrying electricity would cause shock. With commendable candor he said he 'honestly didn't give the wires [transmission] much of a thought.' From this statement and the other evidence, such as photographs of the scene it is clear that the electric wires were in plain sight. Flying his kite in an urban vicinity, appellant should have assumed, or at least suspected, that the wires in his unobstructed view were conducting electricity to the residences in the neighborhood. A man of appellant's experience and obvious intelligence--he was formerly a pilot in the Army Transport Command, was presently operating a plane between San Juan and New York, had been schooled in the use of the apparatus he was testing--would be expected to anticipate danger in...
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...724(8), 725 (footnote 9); Hall v. Lorain-Medina Rural Elec. Co-op., 104 Ohio App. 278, 148 N.E.2d 232, 236(3); Richmond v. Florida Power & Light Co., Fla., 58 So.2d 687, 688(2); Dudding v. Florida Keys Elec. Co-op. Ass'n., Fla.App., 105 So.2d 597, 599; 18 Am.Jur., Electricity, Sec. 53, p. 4......
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