Opinion ID: 1809003
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did Joe Wheeler owe Dominic a high and exacting duty?

Text: DiBiasi first argues that, as a company that supplies electric power, Joe Wheeler's duty of care extends to the safeguarding of everyone in person or property, at places where he or it may rightfully be. DiBiasi's brief at 29 (citing Alabama Power Co. v. Matthews, 226 Ala. 614, 147 So. 889 (1933)). She further urges that Joe Wheeler owed Dominic a high and exacting duty because Joe Wheeler is in the business of supplying `the very dangerous agency' of electricity. DiBiasi's brief at 26 (citing Bloom v. City of Cullman, 197 Ala. 490, 73 So. 85 (1916)). Joe Wheeler responds that each of the Alabama cases cited by [DiBiasi] deals with the defendant utility company's failure to eliminate a defect in a power line that it owned. Moreover, each of these cases dealt with electricity supplied by the defendant. Joe Wheeler's brief at 34. Joe Wheeler's argument is well-taken. The authority on which DiBiasi relies is distinguishable. See Alabama Power Co. v. Emens, 228 Ala. 466, 473, 153 So. 729, 734 (1934) (Where, in the case at bar, a person engaged in the business of generating and distributing electricity for domestic and other uses also sells and engages to install electrical equipment in the residence of one of its patrons, and supply its current therefor for domestic use, it must exercise the care of a reasonably prudent man skilled in the practice and art of installing such equipment.... [T]he obligation assumed and the duty arising out of such circumstances are not unlike that resting upon a physician or surgeon....); Matthews, 226 Ala. at 615, 147 So. at 889-90 (Plaintiff's evidence tended to show that defendant [electric company] maintained and operated a transmission line ... carrying a current of 44,000 volts;... that a current of electricity, thus diverted from the line, killed the mule instantly.); Bloom, 197 Ala. at 497, 73 So. at 88 (The degree of care resting upon the municipality, with respect to the means of transmitting its electric current over public thoroughfares was high and exacting, commensurate with the very dangerous agency it was employing in lighting its streets.). See also Alabama Power Co. v. Cantrell, 507 So.2d 1295, 1297 (Ala.1986) (`The duty of an electric company, in conveying a current of high potential, to exercise commensurate care under the circumstances, requires it to insulate its wires....' (quoting Alabama Power Co. v. Brooks, 479 So.2d 1169, 1172 (Ala. 1985), quoting in turn Bush v. Alabama Power Co., 457 So.2d 350, 353 (Ala.1984))). Joe Wheeler may have a high and exacting duty when it is supplying electricity over its own transmission lines; however, that question is not presented here. It is undisputed that Joe Wheeler merely supplied the pole to which Hartselle's transmission line was affixed and that it neither owned nor installed the power lines at issue and did not supply the power resulting in the death of Dominic. Therefore, we conclude that Joe Wheeler did not, in this instance, owe Dominic the high and exacting duty DiBiasi asserts it owed him.