Court Opinion

ID: 9810360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:48:12.717504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:52.392547
License: Public Domain

Barnhill, J.,
dissenting: The defendant’s employee disconnected the wires at the home at which the plaintiff’s intestate was killed and “tied them back.” They were located on the outside above the porch out of *701reach. The circuit was broken so that there was no danger therefrom. To hold that the defendant in this case is liable in damages for its negligent failure to thereafter inspect the wires is to hold that it was its duty to foresee: (1) That the occupant of the house would employ an electrician who would send an incompetent or careless assistant to make the repairs to the house wiring, over which the defendant had no control; (2) that such employee, instead of running the wires through the conduit provided, would install temporary wiring extending under the house to the switch; (3) that he would switch the wires at the terminal, attaching the energized wire to the neutral terminal and the ground wire to the “hot” or charged terminal, thus energizing the switch box and the BX cable; (4) then, contrary to the prevailing custom and in violation of the rules of the defendant, he would connect the house wires to defendant’s line, thus charging the house wires with electricity; and, (5) that the plaintiff’s intestate, or some other person, would go under the house and come in contact with the energized cable. To my mind this requires a degree of prevision bordering on the omniscient and is far-more than the law demands.
The point of delivery of current by the defendant was on the outside-of the house above the roof. Its wiring ended there. This is the law under' the rules and regulations governing electric service adopted by the Utilities Commissioner under authority duly vested in him by statute, C. S., 1112, subsections (b) (11).
The wiring within the house belonged to and was under the control of the property owner. The defendant had no right, and it was not its duty, to repair or inspect the same. There is no evidence that the defendant’s wires were improperly connected by the electrician to the-house wires or that an inspection thereof, had it been made, would have disclosed the conditions which caused the death. It is apparent that it would not have done so, for, in the final analysis, the dangerous situation was created by the improper connection of the wires at the switch box.
If it be conceded that the act of the defendant in leaving its energized wires disconnected at the house — in a harmless condition by reason of the fact that the circuit was broken — and in its failure to inspect, constitutes negligence, it was an act of omission, negative in nature. The-negligence of the electrician employed by the occupant of the house was active and constitutes the direct, proximate cause of the unfortunate and untimely death of plaintiff’s intestate. In my opinion, under no view of the evidence can it be said that the failure of the defendant to inspect its wires in any wise contributed thereto or proximately caused the same.
Under modern conditions when buildings are constructed provision is. made for electric lighting. The wires and incidental fixtures are frequently placed on the inside of brick or stone walls. In the selection or *702installation of tbe wires and fixtures tbe public service corporation bas no part. It merely delivers current at tbe point of intake designated by tbe owner. While I fully concur in tbe view tbat a distributor of electric current should be beld to a bigb degree of care, I feel tbat to adopt a rule wbicb requires it to inspect and approve sucb wiring before cutting on its current places upon tbe public service corporation an unreasonable, and, in most instances, an impossible task.
Winborne, I., concurs in dissent.