Dugan v. Erie County Electric Co.

Citations

• 241 Pa. 259
• 88 A. 437
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 773

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Electric light companies — Defective wire — Duty of inspection — Death.</p> <p>In an action to recover damages for the death of plaintiff’s husband, caused by his hand coming in contact with a heavily charged electric light wire of defendant company, while decedent was walking on the pavement of a city street, it appeared that the wire had been burned through and one part of it hung from the pole and extended downward to within three inches of the ground, where the wind caused it to swing back and forth, across the pavement; that a telephone company had extended an uninsulated guy wire from one of its poles between the defendant’s wires and had wound it around the pole of the latter, fifteen feet from the ground; that for upwards of a year the guy wire had been slack, so that the wind would blow it against the electric light wires and in wet weather a circuit would be completed and the weaker wire would be burned through; that the guy wire had not been placed between the defendant’s wires with its consent, and it had no actual notice of its existence; and there was evidence that the touching of the wires gave rise to a condition which would inevitably cause one of them to fall, which condition would have been disclosed by proper inspection. Held, that the only ground upon which defendant would be held liable was its failure to properly inspect its system of wires, that this question was properly submitted to the jury.</p>