Opinion ID: 459905
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 10 emergencies

Text: In an emergency or threatened emergency affecting or liable to affect the safety of life or property, either party shall have the right and authority to stop the work and/or order and direct such changes therein or in the methods, plant and tools used by the Contractor or Owner, as necessary in the circumstances. 1.12 INSPECTION AND TESTING All plant to be provided, work to be performed, and material and equipment to be supplied pursuant to the contract shall at all reasonable times and on reasonable notice be subject to inspection and testing by Owner or its inspector.... (Emphasis added.) 17 Ohio App.3d at 21-22, 477 N.E.2d 1160 15 Typical of the exchanges between the court and counsel is the following, which took place during closing arguments: THE COURT: I have no questions other than the one I raised, Mr. Anninos, and that has to do with the duties upon the United States under Ohio law to save the plaintiff from his own folly which is really what we are talking about. MR. ANNINOS: .... As your honor knows, the United States admitted possession, custody, and control of the instrumentality, and there is no question about that. And because Mr. Angel was there as an invitee with respect to that instrumentality, they owed a duty to him to keep it safe. THE COURT: Mr. Anninos, that raises a question that has been troubling me since the outcome of the case. That installation was safe. There is no way that any person unintentionally by himself could be subjected to danger. There is no way that any individual walking on the ground, unless he carried some metal object 19 feet long, was in any danger whatsoever. Actual, theoretical, whatever. MR. ANNINOS: You heard Dr. Garrett say that you could extend between two and three feet-- THE COURT: From the wire which is still 19 and a half feet off the ground. MR. ANNINOS: So that if you had an object-- THE COURT: This is precisely the point. How many people do you know who carry around a 16 foot metal object routinely? Would your position be different, for example, if the electrical wire was two feet off the ground and could be touched by an umbrella? Wouldn't that be a totally different condition of danger? MR. ANNINOS: I didn't catch the last part, Your Honor? THE COURT: I am suggesting to you that if this wire were, say, seven feet off the ground, and an individual carrying an umbrella over his head came into contact with it and was electrocuted, would that not be a totally different situation than the same wire 19 feet off the ground? MR. ANNINOS: Your Honor, the only difference it would make is that the seven foot of the wire would be totally outside code. THE COURT: Mr. Anninos, you are missing my point. You and I have a problem with communicating. I am suggesting to you that where there is a danger that is reasonably likely to cause harm, the obligation is simply different. It is foreseeable that somebody will be walking along the street with an umbrella, a metal umbrella over his head. It is not equally foreseeable that somebody will be walking with a 19 foot umbrella or any other object. And I suggest to you that the obligation bears upon foreseeability. There is an effective use of space concept, isn't there? Human beings can occupy roughly six feet of space from the ground. If they are exceedingly tall, it may be seven feet. They can extend their arms for perhaps another two feet. But when you start getting above that space, isn't there a difference in foreseeability? MR. ANNINOS: The foreseeability, with that, also goes along with the type of usage that the space is placed onto. I agree with you if there were not to be any ladders there and there wasn't to be any sand-blasting work there that an individual walking through would not be foreseeable under most circumstances that he would get electrocuted. However, let's now set the scene, and the workman comes in with a ladder. And it becomes immediately apparent now that this space-- THE COURT: Be careful. Not a ladder. A metal ladder. And not just any metal ladder. A twenty foot metal ladder. There are an enormous number of ladders that would not be metal, that would be metal and less than twenty foot. And in those instances there would be no danger. You must postulate a person in that area with something nineteen feet long and made out of metal. MR. ANNINOS: All right. When I said a letter, [sic] I didn't mean any old ladder. I meant the ladder we had in this case. And with that ladder there, that whole area becomes a potential for danger. THE COURT: By the carrier of the ladder. MR. ANNINOS: For the sake of argument, and without any admission on my part, let's even assume that that was negligence on his part to bring the ladder within that area. Now, the day before that, we have Mr. Gibson inspect it, go to the site, talking to the people, and seeing aluminum ladders. THE COURT: You will agree, Mr. Anninos, that the point I made yesterday, there is no prohibition on bringing aluminum ladders onto the base. There is no prohibition against using it on the other three sides of the building. MR. ANNINOS: I agree with you, but once the ladder is there, don't you owe that person one warning to tell him, Look, this is dangerous. Don't use this ladder on this wall. THE COURT: All right. Let's bring down what we have now. We now have a situation where this is not a dangerous situation for a wooden ladder, for any ladder being below 20 feet, and not dangerous for any work on three sides of the building. The only danger occurred when you bring that ladder onto the north side of the building and bring it into proximity with the obvious electrical installation. Are you suggesting that that imposes a duty, that incredibly small window of obligation imposes a duty upon the United States to foresee it and prevent it. .... [Mr. Angel] is in total control. He has got the unique device that creates danger. That transformer sitting there 19 and a half feet off the ground is no danger to anyone other than a very low flying airplace [sic]. It is no danger to a person walking. It is a danger only to that person with a 19 foot metal object in proximity to his body. .... He is in total, sole, complete control of that danger object which would conduct electricity. [Tr. III-84-89, 91-92] 16 Moreover, the government's expert witness testified, and the government argues in its brief on appeal, that the height of the sign's placement demonstrates that it was not intended to warn a person on the ground, but only a workman on the platform itself. As the many ladder, scaffold, crane and other accident cases suggest, however, workmen on the ground often make contact with overhead lines, and such contact may be foreseeable 17 Plaintiff complains that the court erred in excluding testimony pertaining to the disappearance of the sign in the interval between the accident and trial. It contends that this evidence should have been admitted, because if it was shown that the sign disappeared while in the custody of the government while plaintiff's suit was pending, plaintiff would be entitled to an inference that the sign was illegible and inconspicuous. In refusing to admit this testimony, the District Court correctly observed that it was irrelevant, since there was ample evidence in the record of the actual appearance of the sign. We find no error in the court's ruling 18 In this regard, we note the District Court's finding that the ladder was standing against the north side of the building on Saturday morning prior to the start of work, when Gibson testified he visited the site. Cf. Thomas v. TVA, at 373 (Wellford, J., concurring) (Thomas does not even claim that TVA negligently failed to warn about a safety condition of which it had particular knowledge at the specific place of the accident.)