Weleetka Light & Water Co. v. Northrop
| Decision Date | 12 May 1914 |
| Docket Number | 3694. |
| Citation | 140 P. 1140,42 Okla. 561,1914 OK 245 |
| Parties | WELEETKA LIGHT & WATER CO. v. NORTHROP. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
The placing and maintaining of electric light wires above and in such close proximity to telephone wires in a street that the former, when charged with electric current, sag and come in injurious contact with the latter is sufficient to justify an inference of negligence against the owner of the former.
The measure of damages for injury to personal property that can be repaired is the cost of repair and the value of its use necessarily lost pending repair.
It is not error to refuse to instruct jury that owner of telephone wires must prove right to use of street to be entitled to recover damages caused by negligence of owner of electric light wires in same street, resulting in injury to former wires and other portions of plant with which same are connected.
A recital in case-made that "to all of the instructions given by the court and to each of them the defendant excepts" is insufficient, where there are several paragraphs embodying different propositions in such instructions.
Evidence imperfect or objectionable in detail, together with conclusions of witnesses as to amount of damages, may be sufficient to sustain a judgment, where no point is made on the trial in regard to absence of sufficient perfect or unobjectionable evidence.
Commissioners' Opinion, Division No. 1. Error from County Court, Okfuskee County; A. W. Huser, Judge.
Action by Mrs. A. L. Northrop against the Weleetka Light & Water Company for damages. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
E. G Wilson, of Oklahoma City (F. W. Casner, of Kansas City, Mo of counsel), for plaintiff in error.
J. B Patterson, of Okemah, for defendant in error.
Plaintiff in error will be designated as defendant, and defendant in error as plaintiff, in accord with their respective titles in the trial court.
Plaintiff owned and managed a telephone plant in the town of Weleetka. Defendant owned and operated wires for the conduct of electric current for lighting which, at places in the town, crossed and were above plaintiff's wires not more than 6 to 12 inches, notwithstanding, according to plaintiff's testimony, they should have been 3 feet above. Defendant's wires were so placed after plaintiff's wires had been strung. When these electric current wires were heavily charged with electricity, they sagged and at times thus came in contact with the phone wires. Plaintiff, before the injuries of which she complains, protested to defendant against the close proximity of the latter's wires to her own; but defendant nevertheless continued to maintain them as above stated.
On August 13, and again on September 16, 1908, at certain crossings defendant's wires, coming, as aforesaid, in contact with plaintiff's wires, transmitted to the latter electric current which, besides minor injury, burnt and destroyed some of her phones (boxes and wires therein), phone bells, "jumper wire," and, finally, on each such occasion, burnt in two her phone wires at places of contact; thus entailing upon her cost of repairs and loss suffered in disuse of her plant pending necessary repairs.
The petition (which was sufficiently definite and certain, in the absence of a motion to make more so) demanded $119.25 as damages caused by the contact of wires on the first, and $123 as damages for such contact on the second ocasion of injuries mentioned above; and the verdict of the jury and judgment of the court was for $242.25, the aggregate amount claimed; but the uncontradicted evidence tended to show the damages sustained to have been somewhat more than this amount.
Defendant contends that there was no evidence of negligence that would render it liable for any damage whatever; but the placing and maintaining of electric light wires above and in such close proximity to telephone wires that the former, when charged with electric current, sag and come in contact with the latter is sufficient to justify an inference of negligence and make a prima facie case of right to recover for injuries upon that ground. 1 Joyce on Electrical Law, §§ 449a-450.
Besides Shawnee Light & Power Co. v. Sears, 21 Okl. 13, 95 P. 449, Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. v. Lukert, 16 Okl. 397, 84 P. 1076, and Ladow v. Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co., 28 Okl. 15, 119 P. 250, as to the degree of care required of electric companies, see, as in point, the following: Lewis' Adm'r v. Bowling Green Gaslight Co., 135 Ky. 611, 117 S.W. 278, 22 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1169, and notes to the last-named report of ...
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