Trammell v. Columbus R. Co.
| Decision Date | 28 February 1911 |
| Docket Number | 2,512. |
| Citation | 70 S.E. 892,9 Ga.App. 98 |
| Parties | TRAMMELL v. COLUMBUS R. CO. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
The court erred in dismissing the plaintiff's petition.
A corporation which, in the conduct of its business, employs a wire charged with a dangerous current of electricity, liable if it should come in contact with the wires of another corporation, to cause injury to employés of the latter while engaged in the performance of their duties, owes to such employés not only the duty of observing ordinary diligence to prevent such contact, but also the duty of inspection for the purpose of discovering and discontinuing such contact.
An electric light company, engaged in conveying electricity by overhead wires over the streets of a city, is under the duty of keeping its wires so insulated as at all times to prevent or at least to guard against, the effect of objects coming in contact with them, regardless of the cause which brings about the contact. An electric light company, which is negligent in not having its wires properly insulated, cannot, if injury results therefrom, relieve itself from the consequences of its own fault by showing that a telephone company has also been negligent in failing to take sufficient precautions to guard against possible contact of the wires of the two companies.
An employé of a telephone company, who, while engaged in the performance of his duties, is injured by an electric current set in motion by contact of wires of the telephone company with wires of another corporation, is not, as related to the latter corporation, a trespasser; and the degree of diligence due by the latter corporation to the employés of the telephone company is the same as extends to all other persons lawfully using the streets--that of ordinary diligence.
"In an action founded on negligence, mere general averments of negligence are sufficient as against the general demurrer." Hudgins v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 122 Ga. 695, 50 S.E. 974. In the petition in the present case, the acts of negligence are set out with sufficient clearness.
"The question of what is ordinary care and what is negligence is one exclusively for the jury, and the court should not take this question from their consideration." Killian v A. & K. R. R., 79 Ga. 234, 4 S.E. 165, 11 Am.St.Rep 410. Whether the deceased in this case exercised ordinary care was a question exclusively for the jury.
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