Court Opinion

ID: 9768583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:09:01.284654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:45.090280
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
DENTON, Chief Justice.
I respectfully dissent.
Plaintiff was seriously injured when he came in contact with defendants’ transmission lines which crossed a public road in Hockley County, Texas. As an employee of Britt Trucking Company, the plaintiff was assisting in moving by truck certain oil well equipment along the road. He was atop the equipment which measured some 17 feet 2 inches above the ground. His job was to lift the electrical lines with a wooden stick to permit the loaded truck to pass under*232neath. While in the process of doing this, he came in contact with one or more of the wires and was severely burned.
As stated in the majority opinion, the primary question is whether the plaintiff below sustained its burden to prove the defendant was guilty of negligence which proximately caused his injuries. The trial court, by its order overruling the plea of privilege, has impliedly found this burden was met. No findings of fact or conclusions of law were requested or filed. In passing upon this law question, we are required to follow the rule: “If discarding all adverse evidence and giving credit to all evidence that is favorable to the successful party, and indulging every reasonable conclusion that is favorable to him, a trier of the facts may have found in his favor, then it is to be concluded there is evidence to support the finding”. Banks v. Collins, 152 Tex. 265, 257 S.W.2d 97. Johnson Testers, Inc. v. Kirby (Tex.Civ.App.) 359 S.W.2d 553 (Dismissed).
Plaintiff pleaded both statutory negligence, that is, in failing to maintain the electrical wiring more than 22 feet above the ground as required by Articles 1436 and 1436a, V.A.T.S.; and common law negligence of failing to maintain such lines at a safe height above the traffic lane of the road. The defendants’ lines extending across the road contained three wires: two transmission lines or “hot wires”, and a neutral or ground wire. The ground wire was broken when the plaintiff was injured. It had been previously broken that same day under similar circumstances. Each time the defendants’ employees repaired the broken lines. When the repairs were made the second time, Duke, a lineman for the defendant, measured the height of the lines with a "shotgun stick". He measured the transmission lines to be 22 feet 4 inches above the road. Prior to this measurement, he shortened the ground wire one foot and moved it up to the same height as the two transmission wires. Ellis, another lineman for the defendant, estimated the ground wire was left “say 18 or 19 foot” high after the first repair and prior to the time plaintiff was injured. Duke testified the ground wire was some 4 feet below the two transmission lines before the repairs were made.
It is the defendants’ contention that the transmission lines were more than 22 feet above the ground and therefore, were not in violation of Articles 1436 and 1436a; and that the neutral or lower wire, not being a transmission line, does not come within the provisions of these statutes. This same contention was rejected in Texas Power & Light Company v. Jacobs (Tex.Civ.App.) 323 S.W.2d 483 (Ref.N.R.E.). There, substantially the same facts existed and the same contentions were made. The court held: “We think it is obvious that if the lower line was dangerous in that it carried electricity or the returning current completing the circuit, it would certainly be subject to the terms of the statute and should have been raised a distance of not less than 22 feet over the roadway, and that such failure was negligence as a matter of law.” There the court treated the neutral or ground wire as a “transmission line for all practical purposes”. In the instant case the lower line was also variously described as a “ground wire” or a “neutral wire”. At various times this wire unquestionably carried electricity. Ellis testified that if the two transmission lines carried “any unbalanced load”, the ground wire “will carry the rest of it off”. Although the Jordan case was a trial on the merits and fuller testimony was presented relative to the characteristics and purposes of the ground wire, the testimony here is sufficient to show the ground wire would, on occasions, carry electricity and was designed for that purpose, and as such, it must be considered dangerous. I think the evidence is sufficient to bring this case within the rule announced in the Jacobs case.
It is also my opinion that when the evidence, both direct and circumstantial, is reviewed in the light most favorable to the ap-pellee, there was evidence to support the action of the trial court in holding, for venue purposes, that the defendant was negligent *233in failing to maintain the electrical wires at a safe height above the road and that such negligence was a proximate cause of ap-pellee’s injuries.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.