Court Opinion

ID: 8862448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 17:53:35.8343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:05:52.548551
License: Public Domain

THAYEB, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I am not able, to concur in all the propositions considered and decided in the foregoing opinion. If a city authorizes a telegraph, telephone, or electric light company to erect a tall wooden pole, burdened with wires, on one of its public thoroughfares, it is affected with knowledge, from the very nature of the structure, that, in course of time, it will decay, and become dangerous to those who have occasion to use its streets. I am of opinion, therefore, that a municipality which authorizes such poles to be erected on its streets is under an obligation to the public to see that they are examined in a proper manner and at reasonable intervals, either by its own agents or by the persons or corporations whom it has authorized to erect them, and that the duty of inspection does not rest exclusively upon the latter, as the opinion of the majority seems to hold. Moreover, I do not understand that the charge of the trial judge, when considered altogether, imposed upon the electric light company the duty of exercising more than ordinary care in the matter of inspecting its poles. From the fact that the jury were instructed very pointedly that there could be no recovery against either of the defendants unless negligence on their part was proven, it is apparent, I think, that the trial judge did not ■entertain the view, or intend to convey the idea to the jury that the electric light company was bound at all hazards to see that its poles were in a safe condition. Considered as an entirety, the charge on this branch of the case meant, I think, that the electric light company was required to adopt a proper method of examining its poles, —one which would be liable to develop any interior rottenness,— and to examine them at reasonable intervals. This direction, in my judgment, was substantially correct.