W. Union Tel. Co. v. McMullen

• Decision Date: 19 November 1895
• Citation: 33 A. 384,58 N.J.L. 155
• Parties: WESTERN UNION TEL. CO. v. McMULLEN.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

33 A. 384

58 N.J.L. 155

WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.

v. McMULLEN.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 19, 1895.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to circuit court, Essex county; Childs, Judge.

Action by Edward McMullen against the Western Union Telegraph Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

W. P. Douglass and Rush Taggart, for plaintiff in error.

Saml. Kalisch, for defendant in error.

VAN SYCKEL, J. In June, 1893, McMullen, who was plaintiff below, was in the employment of the Western Union Telegraph Company, engaged in helping to set poles, string wires, put up cross arms, and connect wires. While in the performance of his duty, and as he was about to attach a new wire, he received such a strong current of electricity from the Western Union wire that he was knocked insensible, and received most painful injuries. The writ of error in this case is prosecuted to review the judgment recovered by McMullen below in compensation for the injuries received by him. The pole upon which McMullen was working at the time he was injured was the property of the telegraph company. It appeared in the case that, in the ordinary use of the telegraph wires, the current of electricity was not sufficient to do injury to the person handling the wires. It further appeared that in various parts of Jersey City, and not far from where McMullen was injured, there were poles of the telegraph company to which were attached electric light wires, heavily and dangerously charged with electricity, and that such electric light wires were in such close proximity to the wires of the telegraph company as to be dangerous, but no electric light wire was attached to the pole on which McMullen was injured. He had been in the employ of the company but one month and five days when he was injured, and had never worked in Jersey City before. It did not appear that the company gave any warning to McMullen of the danger in stringing its wires by reason of their close proximity to electric light wires at other points. The trial court charged the jury that McMullen, when he entered the service of the company, assumed the ordinary risks incident to the employment, and he also assumed risks arising in consequence of special features of danger known to him, or which he could have discovered by the exercise of reasonable care. He left it to the jury to say whether the placing of electric light wires upon some of the poles of the company, near to the telegraph...