Court Opinion

ID: 9862912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:28:03.428759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:38:09.442475
License: Public Domain

HornEy, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Oppenheimer and Barnes, JJ., concurred.
The majority, in ruling that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law on the theory that he was chargeable with knowledge of an existing dangerous condition irre*493spective of whether he had knowledge thereof, in effect hold that electric power companies cannot be held liable for injuries sustained by one who comes in contact with uninsulated wires that can be seen regardless of where such wires are erected or how negligently they are maintained. To me, charging the plaintiff with knowledge of the presence of uninsulated high voltage wires, under the facts and circumstances of this case, necessarily places an unreasonable burden on all persons to make themselves aware of the presence of all electric wires regardless of where such wires may be and regardless of the circumstances under which they come in contact therewith.
In the case at bar, the plaintiff, who was aware of the dangerous characteristics of electricity, testified that although he had observed the several insulated wires a few feet above his trailer and carefully avoided them, he did not see the uninsulated wires some twelve and one-half feet above the top of the trailer and did not know they were there. Even if he had seen the electric wires he claimed they would have been indistinguishable from the guy wires which were also not insulated. He explained that he could not and did not see the uninsulated wires because the sun, which had been appearing off and on the day of the accident, came out again and was shining in his eyes as he was attempting to hoist the antenna into place. In further explanation of the reason for not having seen the high voltage wire before he wras injured, it was shown that the plaintiff had resided in the trailer park for only a month. During that time his duties and the weather were not conducive to an exploration of his surroundings. He left home at daybreak and returned at nightfall, and the weather for the most part had been inclement. He and his family took a trip over one of the weekends. Later he was housed for two weeks with the flu and was unable to help his wife move from the rented trailer they first occupied to the trailer they subsequently bought. He had not examined the site of their own trailer before it was put in place and he was not able to assist with blocking it up or making the water, sewer and electrical connections. He and his family had occupied the new trailer for only a week before the injury occurred. Other than himself, there were no witnesses to the accident.
*494While the defendant did not admit that it was primarily negligent, several of its employees frankly stated that in their opinion it was not the better practice, because of potential dangers to occupants, for the defendant to maintain uninsulated high voltage wires over a row of trailers, and one of them, whose duty it was to inspect and report such conditions as appeared to be hazardous and not in conformity with good engineering practice, had recognized the existing dangerous condition but failed to report the hazard to his supervisor.
The majority has placed considerable emphasis on the fact that two days before the accident the plaintiff had worked under the wires during the course of erecting a pole in order to avail himself of telephone service. Additional stress is placed on the fact that the plaintiff neither mentioned the sun nor stated that it had blinded him in his pretrial deposition. As to the first fact, the record indicates that the pole was erected sometime after five o’clock in the afternoon and there was no evidence with respect to visibility or the lack of it at that late hour on the seventh day of the second month in the year. As to the second fact, the plaintiff testified that during the taking of his deposition he was never questioned as to whether he had seen the wires he came in contact with or as to what had prevented him from seeing them. Be that as it may, the plaintiff consistently testified on direct and cross-examination that he had not seen the dangerous high voltage wires directly over his head, and there was no testimony to the contrary.
Taking into consideration the comparatively brief length of time he had lived in the trailer camp prior to the accident and particularly the almost complete absence of opportunity to observe his surroundings, due to being away at work most of the daylight hours, to taking a trip over one of the weekends, to being ill for more than a fortnight, to- the consistent inclemency of the weather and to his inability to assist with making the water, sewer and electric connections for the new trailer, the real issue, in my opinion, is whether the plaintiff, having looked and missed seeing the high voltage wires because of the glaring sunlight, can be said to have been guilty of contributory negligence. To me, the conclusion that he was negligent is clearly wrong if not incredible. For where, as here, there was *495evidence that the plaintiff exercised ordinary care in ascending the ladder but, as the result of an intervening cause he had not anticipated, was prevented from seeing what he otherwise could or should have seen had not the sun interfered with his vision, the question as to whether or not the plaintiff should have seen the dangerous overhead wires was a jury question. As was said in B. & O. R.R. Co. v. Hendricks, 104 Md. 76, 86, 64 Atl. 304 (1906), “there is a broad difference between not seeing an object because one does not look, and not seeing it though one does look.” Failure, therefore, to see what is there when one looks may be due, as it was in this case, to causes other than the lack of due care. In State use of Bell v. Eastern Shore Gas and Electric Co., 155 Md. 660, 142 Atl. 503 (1928),1 where the high voltage wire passed directly over the property of the deceased, it was recognized (at p. 664, that his “inattention to the overhead danger was doubtless due to temporary forgetfulness of its presence, but that would not render his conduct other than negligent, unless his mind was momentarily diverted from the peril by some special and adequate cause, of which * * * there [was] no proof.” (Emphasis added.)
In McKinney v. Appalachian Elec. Pow. Co., 261 F. 2d 292 (4th Cir. 1958), the question of whether the plaintiff knew or should have known of a low-hanging power line was said to be for the jury. Likewise, Muck v. Snohomish County Public Utility Dist., 247 P. 2d 233 (Wash. 1952), is directly in point. In that case, which arose out of a fatal accident resulting from contact with electric wires during the erection of a television antenna, the question of whether the wires which could have been seen, should have been seen, was held to be for the jury. See also the cases collected in 69 A.L.R. 2d 9 (at p. 51) which hold the question of contributory negligence in a case such as this to be for the jury. The majority do not challenge the holding in McKinney that the power company failed to meet its *496burden of showing that the deceased knew, or should have known, he was near a low-hanging power line which was not visible to one entering the right of way covered by a growth of underbrush. But they attempt to distinguish Muck by saying that there was in that case no showing that the deceased knew of the existence of the wire. That, however, as the record shows, was precisely the situation in the case at bar. Not only was there no showing that the. plaintiff in the present case knew there were uninsulated wires higher overhead than the insulated wires a few feet above the trailer but there was other evidence that having looked he had been prevented from seeing the uninsulated wires by a circumstance beyond1 his control. Clearly, the question of whether or not the plaintiff was contributorily negligent was for the jury to decide. The jury found that he had not contributed to the serious injuries he sustained, and their verdict should not be disturbed.
Aside from this, since the plaintiff was without knowledge of the uninsulated overhead wires, all of the cases relied on by the majority are clearly distinguishable on their facts. In Cumberland v. Lottig, 95 Md. 42, 51 Atl. 841 (1902), where the electric wires were only eighteen inches from the roof on which the child was lying, the knowledge which the mother had or should have had of the dangerous character of the wires was imputed to the child. Likewise, in State use of Bahner v. Consolidated Gas Co., 159 Md. 138, 150 Atl. 452 (1930),2 where the deceased knew of the presence of the wires and the question was whether he knew or ought to have known of the hazard of *497throwing a radio aerial wire over electric wires, it was properly held that the deceased was contributorily negligent.
As in the Maryland cases, the same is true with respect to the cases cited by the majority from other jurisdictions. In the cases of Thompson v. Cons. Gas Elec. Lgt. & Pow. Co., 111 F. Supp. 719 (D.Md. 1953), Arkansas Power & Light Co. v. Hubbard, 28 S. W. 2d 710 (Ark. 1930), Hines v. Consumers’ Ice & Light Co., 294 S. W. 409 (Ark. 1927) and other cases 3 referred to by the majority in line with these three, the injured party had knowledge of the presence of the wires prior to the happening of the accident. In Thompson, contributory negligence was said to exist from the failure of the plaintiff, who was aware of the wires, to check the height of his mast, the tide and the charts of the area. In Hubbard, where the plaintiff was aware of the overhead wires, the question was whether she knew they were dangerous. In Hines, the plaintiff, who knew of the electric wires, was contributorily negligent in working as close to them as he did in repairing telephone lines. Also, in Rudd v. Public Service Co., 126 F. Supp. 722 (N. D. Okla. 1954), where the plaintiffs apparently knew of the wires—there was no question as to whether their knowledge made them guilty of contributory negligence—they were held to be negligent in failing to make certain that their manner of handling an antenna would not result in it falling onto the surrounding electric wires.
In Craft v. Fordson Coal Co., 171 S. E. 886 (W.Va. 1933), the plaintiff was said to be contributorily negligent in failing to exercise ordinary care in that he did not look before ascending the side of a building. In that case, however, there was no evidence, as there was in the case at bar, that the plaintiff looked but missed seeing the wires because of an intervening factor he had not foreseen.
In my opinion the judgment should be affirmed. Judge Oppenheimer and Judge Barnes concur in this dissent.

. This case, which is cited by the majority as one of those in which the injured person was charged with knowledge of the existence of a high voltage wire, is clearly distinguishable from the case at bar in that there the deceased must have known of the existence of the wire since he had worked his garden under it for more than three years and had even repaired the wire on one occasion.

. The quote within the quote from the opinion in State use of Bahner v. Consolidated Gas Co., 159 Md. 138 (taken from Linton v. Baltimore Mfg. Co., 109 Md. 404, 411, where a laborer employed in one part of a factory fell into a vat of boiling molasses in another part), relied on by the majority to support the proposition that the plaintiff in the case at bar was contributorily negligent does no more than restate the well known rule of law that one must use reasonable care to observe and take notice of obvious dangers. Since, however, there was no showing that the plaintiff had not used reasonable care, the question (as herein above stated) is whether he, having looked and missed seeing the overhead wires, can be said to have been contributorily negligent as a matter of law.

. May v. Illinois Power Co., 96 N. E. 2d 631 (Ill. 1951), Murphy v. Iowa Elec. Co., 220 N.W. 360 (Iowa 1928), Hamilton v. Laclede Elec. Co-op., 294 S. W. 2d 11 (Mo. 1956) and Watson v. Virginia Elec. & Pow. Co., 100 S. E. 2d 774 (Va. 1957).