Rutland Electric Light Co. v. Marble City Electric Light Co

• Citation: 26 A. 635,65 Vt. 377
• Parties: RUTLAND ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. v. MARBLE CITY ELECTRIC LIGHT CO
• Decision Date: 01 January 1893
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

26 A. 635

65 Vt. 377

RUTLAND ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. v. MARBLE CITY ELECTRIC LIGHT CO

Supreme Court of Vermont

January 1, 1893

GENERAL TERM, 1893

Bill in chancery. Heard upon the pleadings and a master's report at the September term, 1892. TAFT, chancellor dismissed the bill pro forma. The orator appeals. The case appears in the opinion.

The pro forma decree dismissing the bill is reversed and the cause remanded; an accounting is ordered for the damages already suffered by the orator, and the orator may have a perpetual injunction restraining the defendant from maintaining its wires so as to interfere with those of the orator.

George E. Lawrence and C. H. Joyce for the orator.

Before TYLER, MUNSON, START AND THOMPSON, JJ.

OPINION

TYLER

The orator and defendant are rival corporations organized under the general laws of this State for the purpose of carrying on, respectively, the business of electric lighting in the village of Rutland.

In May 1886, the orator entered into a written contract with the trustees of the village for lighting the village streets, and acting upon and in compliance with that contract it established a plant, erected poles, strung wires and commenced doing business. It was stipulated that where wires crossed streets they should not be within thirty feet of the ground and that line wires should be at least twenty feet above the ground. The poles were erected at points indicated by the trustees.

Some three years later the defendant, by permission of the trustees, erected poles, strung wires and commenced the business of electric lighting in competition with the orator. Its poles were also placed under direction of the trustees. In some of the principal streets the poles were set on the same side as the orator's poles and quite near to them. The orator employs a system for lighting buildings with incandescent lamps with a current of electricity used on its wires of only one hundred and ten volts, which is so low a current that the wires when charged can be handled with safety. The defendant uses for its incandescent lamps an alternating current of one thousand volts on its wires in the streets. By means of what are called converters a current of fifty volts is taken into buildings.

When the defendant's wires were first strung upon the poles they did not touch the wires and poles of the orator, but from the effect of storms, from stretching or some other cause, they now sometimes come in contact with the orator's poles and wires and injure them. The wires should not be nearer each other than twelve inches, and the cross pieces upon which they are strung should be at least two feet apart, so that when the wires are loaded with snow and ice, or when swayed by the wind, they will not come in contact. When the wire carrying a heavy current comes in contact with one carrying a lighter current, the heavy current is liable to be inducted into the other wire, which endangers the orator's wires, lamps and plant, and is liable to set fire to buildings, for which the orator would be answerable in damages....