Court Opinion

ID: 9745033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:29:33.763359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:55.079528
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE BARRY, dissenting: The complaint alleges that plaintiff suffered serious injuries which are claimed to have been caused (proximately, as the law requires), not by any physical contact with electrical wires which are admitted to have been plainly visible, but, according to the complaint, by the dangerous and secret proclivities of the high voltage transmitted by these carriers to escape through space to the antenna plaintiff held in his hand. It is alleged that defendants had actual knowledge of the latent and dangerous potentiality of the energy transmitted by these uninsulated wires to escape by arcing, and that defendants’ knowledge derived from their awareness of a prior similar occurrence, unknown to plaintiff, wherein one Donald Boles was electrocuted when electricity from these same wires jumped through space to a television antenna he was affixing to his mobile home located in this very same residential park. Finally it is charged that defendants were negligent in failing to warn plaintiff of this latent peril of which they had knowledge and of which he was unaware, and that he was at all times in the exercise of due care for his own safety. Considering these pleadings, and the denials contained in defendants’ answer, I confess dismay at the conclusion of the majority that plaintiff’s testimony, given in a discovery deposition, that he did not look or see the visible overhead wires, when considered in its aspects most favorable to plaintiff, precludes all reasonable inference that he acted in due care. This rule that a plaintiff is barred from recovery by his failure to look and see has heretofore always been limited to situations where the causative peril is alleged or shown to be a patent one which would have been plainly visible and appreciated by any reasonable and sighted man had he simply looked. But the plainly visible wires are not the causative peril by which plaintiff is alleged to have been menaced here. The wires were merely the silent carriers of an invisible force the lethal capacities of which are alleged to have been unknown to plaintiff but known to defendants. At 57 Am. Jur. 2d Negligence §342 (1971), the rule is given that “[t]he duty to look and listen is not an absolute one; it may be qualified by attendant circumstances.” Thus, in Locke v. Red River Lumber Co., 65 Cal. App. 2d 322, 150 P.2d 506 (1944), for example, plaintiff-customer in defendant’s well-lighted store sustained injury when she tripped on a plainly visible defect in the concrete floor of an aisle. A judgment in plaintiff’s favor was affirmed against defendant’s contention that the proof showed her contributorily negligent as a matter of law in failing to look and see the plainly visible defect. Relying on American Jurisprudence, the court said even of patent and observable dangers that while one is ordinarily required in the exercise of reasonable prudence to use his sight and hearing with due diligence for his safety, the mere failure to observe a visible peril does not necessarily constitute contributory negligence since such failure may be reasonably accounted for by other proof as to circumstances, and that it is a question of fact as to whether in light of all the evidence, the failure to look and apprehend is reasonably accounted for. At 57 Am. Jur. 2d Negligence §342 (1971), it is explained further that it is not contributory negligence to fail to look out for a danger, where it is shown that looking and listening would not have given notice or comprehension of the existing peril. And at section 333 of the same volume and topic, it is stated that “[o]ne cannot be charged with contributory negligence as a matter of law unless the danger was so glaring and obvious as to threaten immediate danger.” (Emphasis added.) Reliance by the majority on the Genaust cause is misplaced. The only discussion in that case which is relevant to the facts here is the discussion at 62 Ill. 2d 456, 343 N.E.2d 472, in respect to the negligence claim against the landowner. And that discussion is authority for a conclusion exactly the opposite of that reached by the majority here. In that case plaintiff was an electrical contractor who came upon defendant’s property to install an antenna. Without coming into contact with overhanging power lines, plaintiff was injured by electrical energy which arced to the antenna. The court said of the defendant-landowner who looked and knew of the wires, that even seeing it, he could not be reasonably held to have discovered or foreseen the latent danger that electrical energy could arc from the transmission lines, and therefore, had no duty to warn of a danger not reasonably foreseeable to him. But the plaintiff in that case, in contrast to the facts alleged here, was an electrician held chargeable with knowledge of the potential risk. Viewing the undisputed proof in the case at bar, in its aspects most favorable to plaintiff, it might be reasonably inferred of him as he alleges by his averments of due care, and as it was said of defendant-landowner in Genaust, that even observance of the wires would not reasonably have disclosed to him the peril to be avoided. And in contrast to Genaust where plaintiff was an electrical contractor chargeable with knowledge of the peril, plaintiff’s complaint here alleges that defendants had actual knowledge of the secret and lethal risk because of a prior electrocution on their property under similar facts. The risk reasonably to be foreseen by them defined the duty to be obeyed here. See Ray v. Cock Robin, Inc., 10 Ill. App. 3d 276, 293 N.E.2d 483. Cases from other jurisdictions reinforce my construction of the law applicable here. In Elliott v. Black River Electric Cooperative, 233 S.C. 233, 104 S.E.2d 357 (1958), plaintiff’s decedent was a carpenter and farmer who was electrocuted when electrical energy escaped from an overhead high voltage wire and arced to a metal lift rod decedent was holding while making repairs to a pump. The proof showed that decedent had no special knowledge of electricity and that no physical contact had been made with the wire. He had not been warned or informed as to the high voltage or its proclivities. Several engineers testified as to the capacity of electricity at different voltages, to arc different distances, depending upon atmospheric conditions. The claim was made there that the proof showed decedent to have been contributorily negligent as a matter of law. That argument was rejected by the trial court and the judgment for plaintiff was affirmed on appeal. The record shows, the appeals court observed, that arcing is caused not solely by the voltage, but by that and a combination of other circumstances which would spell foreseeable danger to an electrician but nothing to an ordinary layman unskilled in such matters. This holding is entirely compatible with Genaust. The wires are merely carriers that give only slight evidence in respect to the dangerous character of their cargo. The Elliott case also referred to an earlier decision in Hill v. Carolina Power & Light Co., 204 S.C. 83, 28 S.E.2d 545 (1943), which contains observations relevant to this discussion. In Hill, plaintiff was a farmer-carpenter with no knowledge of the vagaries of electricity. He was working on the roof of a warehouse near the ridge sawing wood sheeting. The saw was in his left hand and a piece of tin roofing in his right. The roof was wet, and he also was wet with perspiration, it being a wet, warm, sultry, drizzly day. Suddenly, the current of 11000 volts from defendant’s overhead wire arced to plaintiff’s left shoulderblade, passed through his body causing shocks, to a minor degree, to five or six other workmen on the roof. One of the fellow workmen testified that he saw a ball of fire leave the high tension carrier and jump a distance of two feet to plaintiff’s back. There was other testimony that plaintiff had been as close as six inches away from the wire. All the workmen had seen the wire but none was aware of its voltage or that current might escape without actual contact. Yet even though they all had looked and had seen the wire, plaintiff there was not held guilty of contributory negligence in coming in close proximity. There was conflicting proof as to how far current may arc from a wire carrying 11000 volts. So frequently, said the court, do unlooked for results attend the meeting of interacting forces that courts should not indulge in arbitrary deductions from physical law and fact except when they appear so clear and irrefutable that no room is left for the entertainment by reasonable minds of any other. In the case at bar, we have no evidence of atmospheric conditions, no evidence of how close plaintiff came to the wire, no evidence as to how far the voltage arced, and, according to defendant’s answer, a disputed factual issue even as to whether any physical contact occurred. It is admitted simply that plaintiff did not look or see the wire, and construing that incident most favorably to plaintiff, the majority, like the unpredictable propensities of electrical energy, arc a considerable gulf to the conclusion that no material factual dispute exists here, and that plaintiff is barred as a matter of law. There are other cases with facts even more parallel to those alleged here where the issues of negligence were held to be questions of fact. In Henderson v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 184 Kan. 691, 339 P.2d 702 (1959), plaintiff was injured while on the property of a friend whom, with another, he was helping to turn a television antenna. They had casually observed the presence of defendant’s overhead electrical wire but plaintiff said it did not particularly attract their attention. The secret and unknown fact was that the wire carried 33000 volts of electricity which escaped to the antenna, electrocuting the two friends and injuring plaintiff. The trial court withdrew the case from the jury at the close of proofs on defendant power company’s motion that the injuries were caused by plaintiff’s contributory negligence. The Kansas Supreme Court reversed and remanded holding that plaintiff was not, as a matter of law, guilty of contributory negligence, and that the issue should be submitted to a jury. The ordinary person, said the court, has no means of knowing whether any particular wire is carrying a lethal current or is harmless. “Mere knowledge of the danger of doing a certain act without a full appreciation of the risk involved is not sufficient to preclude a plaintiff from recovery * * as a matter of law. 184 Kan. 691, 702,339 P.2d 702, 711. In Hoppe v. City of Winona, 113 Minn. 252, 129 N.W. 577 (1911), plaintiff’s intestate was an employee of defendant painting-contractor employed by defendant-city to paint its Mississippi River Bridge crossing to Wisconsin. The city had allowed defendant power company to string electrical wires across the bridge and the proof showed these wires were used to carry or transmit from 25000 to 45000 volts of electricity. While painting the bridge, plaintiff’s intestate, without any physical contact with the wires, was electrocuted by arcing voltage. Defendant-city and defendant-power company claimed that decedent was contributorily negligent as a matter of law, and raised this issue on appeal from adverse judgments. In affirming the judgments, the Minnesota Supreme Court observed (113 Minn. 252, 256, 262, 129 N.W. 577, 578, 581) that this generally “unknown, powerful, and destructive” propensity of electricity is well known to electricians and though present “was concealed and beyond the knowledge of the contractor or his servants,” and that the duty to make it known was upon the city that owned the bridge upon which decedent was standing, and the power company whose wires were suspended overhead. It was held that the issues were correctly submitted to the jury. For cases supporting the thesis that recovery would not necessarily be barred as a matter of law even if plaintiff, after looking and seeing the wire, had touched it intentionally or accidentally, see Annot., 34 A.L.R.2d 98 (1954) and cases cited therein. I respectfully suggest the cases cited by the majority are distinguishable and not supportative of the trial court’s granting of the summary judgment. I would reverse and remand the cause for further proceedings.