Simmons v. Shreveport Gas, Electric Light & Power Co., Ltd.

• Decision Date: 09 April 1906
• Docket Number: 15,801
• Parties: SIMMONS v. SHREVEPORT GAS, ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER CO., Limited, et al. SMULLINS v. SAME
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

41 So. 248

116 La. 1033

SIMMONS v. SHREVEPORT GAS, ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER CO., Limited, et al.

SMULLINS v. SAME

No. 15,801

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 9, 1906

Rehearing Denied May 21, 1906.

Appeal from First Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; Thomas Fletcher Bell, Judge.

Actions by J. B. Simmons against the Shreveport Gas, Electric Light &amp Power Company, Limited, and the Shreveport Telephone Company and by J. M. Smullins against the same defendants. Judgments for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Alexander & Wilkinson, for appellant Shreveport Gas, Electric Light &amp Power Co.

Wise, Randolph & Rendall, for appellant Shreveport Telephone Co.

Hall & Jack, for appellees.

PROVOSTY, J. BREAUX, C.J. concurs in the opinion and decree, and dissents only regarding the amount.

OPINION

PROVOSTY, J.

The wires of the two defendant companies are on the same side of the street. The telephone company's posts are taller than those of the electric light company, and its wires are strung 10 feet higher. For connecting with a house on the other side of the street two of the telephone wires were run slanting downward to a lower post on the same side of the street a distance of about 80 feet, then across the street to the house, then down the side of the house, and finally under the house, two feet from the ground. On their way downward they passed through the fleet of wires of the electric light company. This brought one of them so close to one of the heavily charged wires that the two would touch in oscillating; and the result was that the insulation of the heavily charged wire was either worn off or burnt off, and that the otherwise harmless wire going to the house became itself dangerously charged. This situation had lasted more than nine months, and the telephone had been removed from the house for more than three months, when the accident occurred which has given rise to this suit.

The two little sons of the plaintiffs in these suits while at play near the house came in contact with the wire. Both were knocked senseless, and remained unconscious some time. Young Simmons soon revived. His only other injury was a burn in the hand which necessitated his carrying the member in a sling for two months, and which has left no trace except a large scar across the palm and a slight contraction of the web between the thumb and the forefinger, such as will affect the use of the hand but very little. Young Smullins remained unconscious for four hours. The little finger of his right hand was burnt off entirely; the next finger was so burnt as to have to be amputated just below the first joint; it, or what is left of it, and the middle finger are now bent rigidly inward, useless and deformed, crooking sideways; the end of one a stub, and the end of the other shrunk, and dwarfed, and peaked. In addition to this, his scalp was burned a space some five or six inches in diameter, and through the skin, and through the outer layer of bone, which afterwards sloughed off. Two months after the accident an operation became necessary, and a circle of four or five inches of the dead bone was cut off. At the time of the trial, which was six months after the accident, the physicians thought the wound would heal in about seven or eight weeks; but that grafting might become necessary, and that the place would remain permanently bald.

The defendants are sought to be held responsible in solido. The telephone company admits its negligence, and its liability for whatever amount of damages the nature of the case may warrant. It complains, however, of the award of the jury as excessive. That award is $ 500 in the Simmons Case, and $ 8,150 in the Smullins Case. If the verdict had been somewhat less the court would, perhaps, have liked it better; but it is not so manifestly excessive as to require reduction.

The negligence charged against the electric light company is that it tolerated this faulty and dangerous construction, and thereafter failed to keep its own wires...