Court Opinion

ID: 9700825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:50:25.000756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:14.876943
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, C.J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority’s duty analysis and its conclusion that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff to avoid negligent conduct in positioning and maintaining its power lines. I write separately, however, because, in my view, the primary cause of the plaintiff’s injury in this case was not, as the majority suggests, the defendant’s failure to detect and repair a frayed wire,1 but, rather, the position*459ing of an uninsulated power line close to a preexisting two-story wooden house.2
I
In my view, the failure to maintain the wire had less to do with this accident than the position of the wire. Instead of focusing more on the defendant’s duty to exercise reasonable care in positioning its uninsulated power line, the majority focuses primarily on the defendant’s "duty to properly inspect and maintain its wires so as to reasonably safeguard against injury or death.” Ante, p 453. (Emphasis added.) The danger created by the power company’s failure to inspect and maintain the wire in this case is arcing. The evidence suggests that a frayed or "dilapidated wire” is capable of throwing an arc about one inch.3 That is not *460very far; indeed, it seems to me that the possibility of a one-inch arc would add little danger to that necessarily existing with a perfectly maintained uninsulated wire carrying 4800 volts of electricity. Therefore, in resolving this case, I would focus less on the condition of the wire and more on its position.
II
The two-story wooden house that the plaintiff was attempting to paint at the time of the fatal accident existed long before the defendant strung its power lines through the area. In positioning its lines, the defendant reasonably should have anticipated that someone might attempt the not unusual task of painting that home, Hale v Duke Power Co, 40 NC App 202, 204; 252 SE2d 265 (1979), and, given its height, that a person performing that task might use a ladder of sufficient length to permit the painting of its peak.
As a general rule, electric and telephone companies and others maintaining highly charged electric wires owe the legal duty, irrespective of any contractual relation, toward every person who in the exercise of a lawful occupation or pursuit in a place where he has a legal right to be, whether for business, pleasure, or convenience, may come in contact with the wires, to see that such wires are properly placed with reference to the safety of such persons and are properly insulated. The rule that persons controlling so dangerous[4] and subtle an agency as electricity should not be permitted to theorize in regard to its probable effects, or specu*461late upon the chances of results affecting human life, is only in accord with reason and common sense. The wires must be either insulated or placed beyond the danger line of contact with persons going where they may reasonably be expected to go. [26 Am Jur 2d, § 122, pp 332-333.][5]
Given the facts of this case, reasonable minds could differ about whether the defendant was negligent in failing to insulate the wire or to position it at a height or distance6 from the house so as to reduce or eliminate the risk of inadvertent contact by a ladder of sufficient length to permit its proper maintenance. Accordingly, I would agree with the majority that the Court of Appeals decision should be reversed and that this case should be remanded to that Court for consideration of the defendant’s remaining issues.
Levin, J., concurred with Cavanagh, C.J.
*462APPENDIX
ml a

 For instance, the majority states:
[A] reasonable person could certainly anticipate that a painter could be electrocuted if his aluminum ladder came close to, or touched, a pitted, corroded and frayed electric wire. [Ante, p 452. Emphasis added.]
In my view, a painter would be just as electrocuted if his aluminum ladder came close to, or touched, a perfectly maintained uninsulated wire carrying 4800 volts of electricity.
*459In addition, the majority states that, given the closeness of the wire and size of the house, "it was foreseeable that someone making repairs could be injured by a dilapidated wire.” Ante, p 453. (Emphasis added.) Again, I would submit that a person making repairs could be just as injured by a perfectly maintained uninsulated wire carrying 4800 volts of electricity.
Finally, the majority states:
"Consumers Power’s alleged failure to conduct routine inspections of the wires, or conducting such inspections in a careless or deficient manner, made it reasonably foreseeable that the company’s failure to discover or repair the damaged wires could result in injury or death to persons using an aluminum extension ladder in proximity to the wire. [Id., p 453.]
Although I am unsure about the intended meaning of this sentence, to the extent that it suggests that the condition of the uninsulated wire is all that made working in its proximity dangerous, I would disagree.

 The house was approximately twenty-seven feet tall at its peak.

 This is in ideal circumstances. The record shows that no one knows how far a power line can arc when the circumstances are less than ideal. Because no one knows how far an arc can be thrown in less than ideal circumstances, the Court of Appeals said that a claim based on being hit by an arc thrown further than one inch is outside *460the realm of known scientific possibility, and that the defendant owed no duty to the plaintiff to guard against such a fortuitous occurrence.

 It has been stated that "[a]n uninsulated high voltage power line carrying a deadly current must be considered one of the most dangerous contrivances known to man.” Black v Public Service Electric & Gas Co, 56 NJ 63, 72; 265 A2d 129 (1970).

 See also 29 CJS, Electricity, § 38, pp 1057-1059 (stating that "[a] power company engaged in the transmission of electricity must anticipate and guard against events which may reasonably be expected to occur, and its failure to do so is negligence, even though the company could not have anticipated the injury which did occur”).

 The defendant owns a sixty-foot easement that runs from the edge of the house in question to the middle of the North Chapin Road. The distance between the edge of the house and the edge of the road measured approximately fifty feet. As the appendix reveals, there is ample room within the easement to have located the wire further away from the house and closer to the road.