Court Opinion

ID: 9588669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:36:46.182822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:10.761694
License: Public Domain

Justice Russell,
with whom Justice Stephenson joins, dissenting.
The issue of contributory negligence in this case was properly submitted to the jury and was resolved in the plaintiff’s favor. In my view, it cannot properly be determined as a matter of law.
The resolution of the issue depends upon whether the plaintiff took such precautions for his own safety as a reasonably prudent person would have taken in like circumstances. In making that determination, the jury had the following facts to consider.
The bare 19,900 volt wire which caused the plaintiff’s injuries may have had a shiny, bare-metal appearance when installed, years earlier, but it had oxidized with the passage of time, causing it to darken. An electrical engineer, who examined it, testified, “I couldn’t tell from looking at the wire itself until I looked at its points of connection to the insulators to make sure that — whether or not it had some solid material wrapped around it such as plastic or rubber.”
The plaintiff was not an electrical engineer, but was a 25-year old self-employed house painter. He testified that the wire appeared to him to be an insulated telephone line. The other wires attached to the same poles were obviously insulated and he saw no evidence of danger. Although these lines ran within 11 feet of the gutter he was painting, there were no signs posted in the area to *43give warning that one of the wires carried 19,900 volts and that it was bare metal.
Whether the plaintiffs conduct was reasonable in light of those facts was an issue peculiarly within the province of a jury. An impartial, properly instructed jury weighed the evidence and gave an affirmative answer. Unlike our English cousins in the common law, we adhere to the jury system in civil cases precisely because reasonable persons may differ upon such questions. I think the trial court erred in setting the verdict aside and would reverse and reinstate the jury’s verdict.