Teddleton v. Florida Power & Light Co.

• Decision Date: 24 January 1941
• Citation: 200 So. 546,145 Fla. 671
• Parties: TEDDLETON v. FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

200 So. 546

145 Fla. 671

TEDDLETON v. FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

January 24, 1941

Rehearing Denied March 11, 1941.

Error to Circuit Court, Palm Beach County; C. E.Chillingworth Judge.

Action by Aman Teddleton, as administrator of the Estate of Isaac Teddleton, a minor, deceased, against the Florida Power &amp Light Company to recover damages for decedent's death. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

COUNSEL

O. S. Miller, of West Palm Beach, for plaintiff in error.

Earnest Lewis & Smith, of West Palm Beach, for defendant in error.

OPINION

WHITFIELD Justice.

The writ of error herein was taken to a judgment for defendant upon a directed verdict for defendant after plaintiff's testimony had been adduced. A farm laborer between twenty and twenty-one years of age was killed by an electric shock from a low sagging electric wire of the power company over the place where such laborer was using a ten-foot metal rod with a chain on the loose end and attached to a motor tractor in marking rows for planting sunflower seed. This action was brought by the administrator of the deceased laborer's estate under sections 7047 (4960), 7048 (4961), C.G.L. See Bowden v. Jacksonville Electric Co., 51 Fla. 152, 41 So. 400, 7 Ann.Cas. 859; Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Bowden, 54 Fla. 461, 45 So. 755, 15 L.R.A., N.S., 451; Davis v. Florida Power Co., 64 Fla. 246, 60 So. 759, Ann.Cas.1914B, page 965; Florida East Coast R. Co. v. Hayes, 67 Fla. 101, 64 So. 504, 7 A.L.R. 1310; Marianna & B. R. Co. v. May, 83 Fla. 524, 91 So. 553; Miami, Dairy Farms, Inc., v. Tinsley, 115 Fla. 650, 155 So. 850; Id., 121 Fla. 780, 164 So. 530.

The second amended declaration herein contains the following allegations:

'Comes now, Amon Teddleton, as administrator of the estate of Isaac Teddleton, a minor, deceased, named in the action styled above by his undersigned attorney and sues the defendant named above in said action and in this his second amended declaration and says that the plaintiff, Amon Teddleton, is the father of the said Issac Teddleton, deceased, a minor, and that the said Isaac Teddleton at the time of his death was a physically strong and able-bodied negro farm laborer and was a man of splendid life, habits and industry and was a minor and was not married and had he lived would have been twenty-one years of age on the 3rd day of February, A. D. 1939; and that the plaintiff, Amon Teddleton, is now under County Judge's Court of Palm Beach County, Florida, the duly appointed, qualified and acting administrator of the estate of said Isaac Teddleton, deceased, a minor; and that on or about the hour of ten thirty-five o'clock in the forenoon on Friday, the 21st day of October, A. D. 1938, the defendant owned or controlled, maintained and operated a great many certain dangerous, high tension, highly charged, exposed, uninsulated electric current and power lines and wires connecting and supplying and transmitting dangerous electric current and power to the public for hire for lighting and other purposes in the vicinity of Pahokee, Florida, suspended on poles set about three hundred feet apart for a distance of one quarter of mile to one-half of mile over and across that certain farm land owned or controlled and cultivated by one certain ----- Wouters at or near Pahoked, Florida, and located on the north side of the Florida East Coast Railroad track and about one quarter of mile east of and from the power house of defendant in Pahokee, Florida, with said dangerous electric lines and wires built and constructed twenty feet to twenty-four feet elevated above the ground and suspended on said poles at or near, over and across that part of said farm land used as end or furrows or rows and used as place of turning around or place like a turn table for plows, tractors, trucks and farm machinery working on said farm land and used as passageway to and from said farm land for persons, plows, trucks, tractors and farm machinery in preparing said farm land for cultivation and in the cultivation thereof and the harvesting and gathering and marketing of crops grown on said farm land; and that at said time and place the said defendant so negligently allowed the same to become in disrepair and negligently allowed one of its dangerous electric power lines and wires to become in need of repair and to sag and to drop and to hang down and to be and remain out of place and to become loose from its fastenings between two of its said poles over, near, at and across the end of the said furrows or rows or place for turning around of plows, tractors, trucks and farm machinery working on said farm land and used as passageway to and from said farm lands at so low and so close a distance to the ground, towit: nine and one-half feet from the ground, that said Isaac Teddleton had a right to be working and was working in broad and open vision of the public and of the said defendant and on that part of said farm land used as said end of furrows or rows or turning place of plows, trucks, tractors and farm machinery working on said farm land and used as passageway as stated above and underneath said dangerous, exposed, uninsulated, sagging, dropped down and hanging low overhead electric line and wire; and while so working said Isaac Teddleton at the end of the said furrows or rows or turning place for plows, trucks, tractors and farm machinery working on said farm lands and used as passageway to and from said farm lands and underneath said power lines and wires charged with dangerous electric power in handling and turning over and around a certain iron pipe or row marker about ten feet long fastened to the rear end of the lower framework or chassis part of a tractor, and while engaged in laying off or marking off rows to be planted to seed in said farming operation, came in contact with one of defendant's said dangerous, exposed, uninsulated, sagging, dropped down and low hanging overhead electric power lines and wires nine and one-half feet above the ground, and that said Isaac Teddleton during his life-time received so great a shock therefrom that said Isaac Teddleton then and there died instanter therefrom as a direct and proximate cause and result of the negligent and careless manner in which defendant permitted and allowed and maintained one of its said dangerous power lines and wires and negligently allowed the same to get into disrepair

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