Rocap v. Bell Telephone Co.

Citations

• 230 Pa. 597
• 79 A. 769
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 655

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Telephone company — Bes ipsa loquitur — Act of God— Lightning.</p> <p>1. In an action against a telephone company to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff from an electric current while he was using a telephone, it is error to submit the case to the jury where the only inference that can be drawn from plaintiff’s own testimony is that the shock received by the plaintiff if communicated by the telephone was produced by atmospheric electricity, and not by an electric current within the control of man.</p> <p>2. Where a person in using a telephone during a violent thunderstorm is shocked and injured by an electric current, and there is nothing to show any negligence upon the part of the company, the rule res ipsa loquitur cannot be applied.</p> <p>3. Where it appears by the plaintiff’s own testimony that he was shocked by using the telephone during a violent thunderstorm and the uncontradicted evidence shows that the best known device in general use for protecting persons against injury by abnormal or atmos-pherical electricity had been placed on the telephone in question, the court should give binding instructions for defendant.</p> <p>4. In such a case the failure of the telephone company to place a warning on the telephone against its use during electrical storms is not evidence to submit to the jury of the defendant’s negligence in the management and operation of the telephone, where there is no evidence that such a warning was ever placed by the defendant company or any other telephone company on telephone instruments.</p>