Court Opinion

ID: 9541377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:24:55.357175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:48.079775
License: Public Domain

Prager, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully dissent. By this decision, the majority have, in effect, denied to the plaintiff his right to trial by jury and have substituted their collective judgment for that of the jury who heard the evidence, observed the witnesses, and then decided the case. The law which is applicable to the duties of an electrical power company is well established in this state by our decisions in Henderson v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 184 Kan. 691, 339 P.2d 702 (1959), and the many cases cited therein.
In my judgment, there was substantial competent evidence presented on behalf of the plaintiff which, when viewed in the light most favorable to the party prevailing below, was sufficient to support the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiff. On the issue of foreseeability, there was evidence which showed that the employees of Kansas Power and Light Company (KPL) knew that the Wilsons were irrigating the cornfield, that they traditionally stored irrigation pipes in the southwest corner of the field under the power lines, and that the pipe was there when KPL employees installed an electric line for the irrigation pump. One employee knew from his own experience in irrigation farming that irrigation pipes were nesting places for rabbits and other rodents and that it was common for farmers to raise irrigation pipes in the air to remove them. One KPL employee actually had thought about the Wilsons upending a piece of pipe into the electrical wires. The defendant’s employees were aware that injury and death had previously been caused by irrigation pipes coming into contact with a KPL power line. Bryce W. Kresie knew of an actual fatal contact 18 years before involving a farmer in the same general area who was electrocuted while attempting to dislodge a rabbit from an irrigation pipe when the pipe made contact with one of the defendant’s lines. The foreseeability of injury from contacts between irrigation pipe and power lines was clearly established by the fact that KPL, before plaintiff’s injury, had a film in its own library depicting exactly the type of occurrence as that which caused plaintiff’s injury in this case. How can it be said, as a matter of law, that plaintiff’s injury was not foreseeable by defendant?
The evidence showed that KPL had no established program for periodic, systematic, or routine inspection of its distribution *517lines. The evidence was undisputed that there were no warning signs posted in the area. A qualified expert witness of plaintiff testified, without equivocation, that he inspected the premises and was fully informed as to the safety practices of the company and the provisions of the National Electrical Safety Code. In his opinion, the defendant power company was in violation of certain provisions of the National Electrical Safety Code. It was his expert opinion that KPL should have taken steps to reduce the possibility of contact between elevated irrigation pipes and the electrical line either by raising the line or insulating it. It was his opinion that the code had been violated, in that the defendant power company had failed to make periodic inspections as required by the code and that the minimum requirements for clearance for power lines as specified by the Kansas Corporation Commission had not been complied with.
In the course of the majority opinion, it is stated as a matter of law that owners of transmission lines, operating in conformity with the National Electrical Safety Code, are not under any duty to alter physically the lines by virtue solely of the owner of an adjacent cornfield shifting his operation from dry land farming to irrigation farming. Or put in another way, the mere usage of metal irrigation pipe in a rural cultivated field does not, in and of itself, mandate alteration of existing electrical transmission lines otherwise satisfactorily designed and maintained. The opinion concludes that to hold that the usage of irrigation pipe alone creates a duty on a power company to raise, bury, relocate or coat its lines would place an unreasonable and unrealistic burden on power companies. The opinion then states categorically that there was simply no evidence that a prudent power company would have physically altered the lines under the circumstances herein. The opinion then concludes as a matter of law that warning devices or periodic inspections were not factors in the accident.
With these conclusions, adopted as a matter of law, I cannot agree. Henderson makes it clear that a power company not only has a duty to use the highest degree of care in the construction of its lines but also has such a duty in the maintenance of its lines. As the use of land changes and the power company gains knowledge of a change which causes the existing lines to become a hazard to the safety of persons who may foreseeably come upon the premises, then the power company has a continuing obliga*518tion to take steps to see that the hazard and danger of injury are reduced accordingly. Additional cost or expense of making an already installed electrical line safer is not a defense. As noted in Henderson v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 184 Kan. at 700:
“[T]he impracticability of insulating wires carrying a high voltage, and the expense of doing so, will not excuse the failure of the defendant to insulate nor preclude the plaintiff from recovering damages for injury and loss (Worley v. Kansas Electric Power Co., [138 Kan. 69, 75, 23 P.2d 494 (1933)]; Logan v. Electric Co., [99 Kan. 381, 161 Pac. 659 (1916)]).”
This was a difficult case which was well tried by able counsel representing all of the parties. A jury of Kansas citizens heard the evidence and brought in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. This verdict was approved by the trial judge who denied defendant’s motion for a directed verdict and for a new trial. This court has now weighed the evidence and substituted its judgment for that of the jury and the trial judge. This an appellate court has no right to do where reasonable minds could differ.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent.