Scott v. Rome Ry. & Light Co.

• Decision Date: 10 July 1918
• Docket Number: 9678.
• Citation: 96 S.E. 569,22 Ga.App. 474
• Parties: SCOTT v. ROME RY. & LIGHT CO.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

96 S.E. 569

22 Ga.App. 474

SCOTT v. ROME RY. & LIGHT CO.

No. 9678.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, First Division

July 10, 1918

Syllabus by the Court.

A public utility corporation furnishing current for electric lights to an individual user who constructs, owns, and maintains a connecting private line and all attached equipment, wholly free from the control or inspection of the corporation, cannot be held responsible for damages on account of deterioration of his private line, and consequent defects therein, resulting in injury to a trespasser who comes in contact with it on private premises, not even adjacent to any path in general use by the public, when the private line was not only properly constructed originally but safely connected with the line of the company generating the electricity, and there was no knowledge on the part of the company as to any subsequent deterioration of the private line.

Under the evidence adduced, the court did not err in awarding a nonsuit.

Error from City Court of Floyd; W. J. Nunnally, Judge.

Suit by John W. Scott, by his next friend, against the Rome Railway & Light Company. Judgment of nonsuit, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Harris & Harris, of Rome, for plaintiff in error.

Dean & Dean, of Rome, for defendant in error.

WADE C.J.

John W Scott, a boy 10 years old, brought suit by his next friend against the Rome Railway & Light Company, alleging that while picking blackberries in an open woodland, he stumbled, and in the act of falling threw up his hand and caught a wire hanging near the ground, which connected with a main wire used by the defendant for the purpose of conveying electric current which it generated, and thereby seriously and permanently injured his hand. The undisputed evidence showed that the wire caught by the plaintiff and which inflicted the injury upon him was originally placed in position by an individual user of electricity, and was entirely constructed and maintained by the said user, without any inspection or control whatever on the part of the defendant company, which furnished by contract the current flowing over it to supply electric lights on his premises. The superintendent of the defendant company testified in behalf of the plaintiff that his company sold electric power and "furnished the electricity" that went through the line of wire where the plaintiff was injured to the house of the individual user, who paid for the current consumed. He testified:

"The company did not construct that wire from the street, from the Black's Bluff road, over to Averett premises. It was not built by the defendant company. It took no supervision over the construction of that wire, nor of the maintenance, nor of the inspection of it. It delivered the current to that line for the use of the Averett property."

He further testified:

"When a private party connects, places his own line, and connects with the wire, with the main line, we take no further supervision or control over his private wire; simply deliver the current at the connecting point, and he maintains the wire, and the poles, and everything; have nothing to do with the building or maintaining of it. That was the case in this instance, up to and at the time the boy was injured. I did not know this wire was down or wanting in insulation up to and at the time the boy was injured."

The evidence disclosed that the injury occurred not only away from the public highway, but also away from any path or road in general use by the public, on private property where the plaintiff was...