Robbins v. Minute Tapioca Co.

• Decision Date: 19 October 1920
• Citation: 128 N.E. 417,236 Mass. 387
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBBINS v. MINUTE TAPIOCA CO. SAME v. ATHOL GAS & ELECTRIC CO.

236 Mass. 387

128 N.E. 417

ROBBINS

v.MINUTE TAPIOCA CO.

SAME

v.ATHOL GAS & ELECTRIC CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Franklin.

Oct. 19, 1920.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Franklin County; James H. Sisk, Judge.

Actions by Walter A. Robbins, administrator against the Minute Tapioca Company and the Athol Gas & Electric Company. Verdict for defendants, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.

Wm. A. Davenport and Charles Fairhurst, both of Greenfield, for plaintiff.

Ely & Ely and William A. McDonough, all of Springfield, for defendants.

DE COURCY, J.

These two actions, tried together, were brought to recover damages for the death of the plaintiff's son, Lewis H. Robbins, who received an electric shock from a highly charged transformer wire owned by the electric company and located on land of the tapioca company. In each case the main question is whether there was evidence of the defendant's alleged negligence entitling the plaintifff to go to the jury.

The property of the tapioca company was on the north side of East Main street in Orange. A main driveway extended from the street along the easterly side of the factory buildings. On the westerly side of the buildings, on the land of the company, there was a path or passageway which was grassed over except where ruts were made by the company's trucks in carrying coal to its bins. Members of a gun club, and owners of land to the north, sometimes made use of this way, especially before the property was acquired by the tapioca company. In July, 1918, the electric company, under a contract to supply power to the factory, placed three of its transformers on land of the tapioca company a few feet west of said way, and erected poles between them and the way. The transformers were about three feet high, and rested upon a platform 20 inches above the ground. The primary wires entering them, carried a voltage of about 2,300 volts; the secondary wires, which ran to the nearest building, carried a voltage of 110 and 220 volts. The insulation was the ordinary triple braid kind used for outside construction. There was evidence that the insulation was off at one place. Apparently this was not where the accident happened; but that is not controlling, in view of the testimony of the plaintiff's expert, that the intestate would receive the shock at any other part.

The story of the accident was told by the Bristol boy, who was with the intestate, Lewis H. Robbins, at the time. It appears that before the tapioca company took the factory in 1918, the boys had sometimes secured empty spools from the previous occupant, a shoe company. On the afternoon of September 21, 1918, they left Bristol's house, east of the factory, purposing to get some spools at the boiler room; they went around the rear of the factory, and then along the path on the westerly side, to a point opposite the transformers. Bristol remained in the middle of the path. The Robbins boy, although warned by his companion not to touch the transformers, reached his hand up over his head, took hold of a wire, and was instantly killed.

On the evidence it is clear that the intestate had no invitation, express or implied, from either of the defendants to go to the place where he was injured. Even when on the driveway he was at most a licensee, and must be regarded as a trespasser when he left the way and approached the transformers. The only legal duty that the defendants owed to him, either as licensee or as trespasser, was to abstain from any wilful, wanton or reckless conduct that was likely to injure him. They were not obliged to keep the premises safe for his use, or to warn him of the dangerous character of the mechanism obviously maintained thereon. Daniels v. New York & New England R. R., 154 Mass. 349, 28 N. E. 283,13 L. R. A. 248, 26 Am. St. Rep. 253;Hector v. Boston Electric Light Co., 161 Mass. 558, 37 N. E. 773,25 L. R. A. 554;Hillman v. Boston Elevated Ry., 207 Mass. 478, 483, 93 N. E. 653,32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 198;Romana v. Boston Elevated Ry., 218 Mass. 76, 82, 105 N. E. 598, L. R. A. 1915A, 510, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 893, and cases cited; Graham v. Pocasset Mfg. Co., 220 Mass. 195, 107 N. E. 920. Something more than gross negligence on their part was required in order to make them liable. Altman v. Aronson, 231 Mass. 588, 592, 121 N. E. 505, 4 A. L. R. 1185.

The evidence would not warrant a finding that either defendant was guilty of a wilful and intentional wrong, or of such reckless disregard of probable consequences as is equivalent thereto. Dean v. Boston Elev. Ry., 217 Mass. 495, 498, 105 N. E. 616. The only evidence against the tapioca company was that its officers, less than three months prior to the accident, authorized the electric company to place the transformers and wires on their land at some convenient place and permitted the apparatus to remain there; that when they were informed about the exposed wire, they immediately notified the electric company, which owned, located and controlled it. It does not appear that they had any reason to anticipate that the intestate would approach this dangerous transformer, much less put his hand upon the wires. During their occupancy he had never come upon their premises for spools,...