Webb v. Louisiana Power & Light Co.

• Decision Date: 29 November 1940
• Docket Number: 6175.
• Citation: 199 So. 451
• Parties: WEBB v. LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT CO.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

199 So. 451

WEBB v. LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT CO.

No. 6175.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

November 29, 1940

Appeal from Fifth Judicial District Court, Parish of Richland; C. J Ellis, Judge.

Suit by Gaddie Webb, individually, and as tutrix, against the Louisiana Power & Light Company to recover for the death of plaintiff's husband resulting from electrocution. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Warren Hunt, of Rayville, for appellant.

Theus Grisham, Davis & Leigh, of Monroe, for appellee.

HAMITER, Judge.

Tom Webb experienced death through electrocution on May 25, 1938 when an iron pipe which he was handling came in contact with an electricity distributing line owned and maintained by defendant, Louisiana Power & Light Company; and his widow Gaddie Webb, in her individual capacity and as natural tutrix for her minor children, instituted this ex delicto action seeking damages occasioned by the death.

Defendant's exceptions of no cause and no right of action directed to the allegations of the petition were overruled.

The trial of the case, in which there was adduced evidence respecting the alleged negligence of both defendant and the decedent, resulted in judgment rejecting plaintiff's demands and dismissing her suit. This appeal followed.

Little controversy exists between the litigants regarding the facts of the case.

Tom Webb was employed on the Bob Rhymes plantation in Richland Parish, Louisiana. He and his family occupied a house on such plantation that faced toward the south, in front of which coursed a gravel road. Separating the road from the front yard of the house was a picket fence. Above the yard, paralleling the fence and road, existed defendant's transmission line. This consisted of three uninsulated wires approximately 2 1/2 feet apart, charged with 13,000 volts of electricity. These wires rested on a cross-arm, located 24 1/2 feet above the ground, that was affixed to a power pole standing in the northeast portion of the yard, about 4 1/2 feet from the picket fence. Just outside the fence was a large hackberry tree, the spread of which was 41 feet in diameter. Foliage and branches of this tree extended over the yard; however, sufficient clearance was therein provided to afford a passageway for the line. The wires, where they passed through the foliage, could not be easily seen by persons standing away from the tree; but after exiting from the tree's confines they were clearly observable.

North of the electricity line, a distance of 18.75 feet from a point on the ground directly beneath the inside wire, was a water well that decedent and his family used. It consisted of a hand pump attached to a number of joints of iron pipe that were clasped end on end. From such inside wire, along the hypotenuse of the imaginary triangle, to the surface of the well was a distance of 30.9 feet.

When Tom Webb arrived home from his plantation duties about noon of the above-named day, he decided to pull the pipe from the water well. Assistance was needed, so he summoned three of his neighbors. On their arrival, the task commenced. All of the men were to resume their regular work that afternoon, and necessarily they proceeded in a hurried manner.

As counsel for plaintiff states in his brief: " The operation of pulling the pipe was carried on by the men assuming a squatting or bending position, grasping the pipe as near the ground as four men could do, and pulling upward until they had assumed a standing position. Then one man would pinch the pipe in the jaws of the monkey wrench, and the other men would reach down for a similar hold and pull the pipe upward. This operation continued until sufficient pipe had been jutted out of the ground so that a joint could be loosened, and then a second joint was loosened and the pipe disconnected."

Only two of the joints were disconnected, each of these being about 8 feet in length. The turning of the remaining pipe, which resulted by reason of a failure to have sufficient tools, prevented additional disconnections; but notwithstanding this inconvenience, the disinterring continued. When the lower end of the several connected joints reached the surface of the ground the workmen lost control of the lengthy pipe and it fell in a southerly direction across and on the live electric wires. The contact brought death to plaintiff's husband and severe burns to those assisting him. All of the workmen had previous knowledge of the existence of the line, it having been maintained there for more than eight years.

The charges of negligence made by plaintiff against defendant are summed up in the following question and statement taken from the brief of her counsel: " * * * was the construction, maintenance and operation of an uninsulated wire, surcharged with thirteen thousand volts across the front yard of deceased, negligent? Especially is it negligence in permitting the wire to be obscured from vision by the foliage of a tree, so that a workman going about his business in one of his every day usual, human endeavors, who temporarily becomes unmindful of the presence of the wire over his front yard, and is thereby injured."

A clear statement of the law prevailing in this state and in most of the other states of the union, with reference to the duties required in the installing and maintenance of high voltage wires, is found in the following extract taken from Anderson v....