Simon v. Missouri & Kansas Telephone Co.

Citations

• 97 Kan. 42
• 154 P. 242
• 1916 Kan. LEXIS 216

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>Negligence — Sagging Telephone Wire — Electric Storm — Horses Killed by Lightning — Proximate Cause. The defendant maintained a telephone line consisting of one wire supported on poles placed at the side of a public highway close to a hedge. At one place the wire sagged to within four feet of the ground. Plaintiff who was traveling with a team and wagon, stopped at noon to rest and turned his horses out to graze on the road. A storm came up and the horses went to the side of the road close to the hedge for shelter. While standing under the wire where it sagged they were killed by lightning which first struck one of the poles 150 feet distant. The telephone wire was not in itself dangerous to persons or animals using the highway for ordinary purposes of travel, and even though it were held negligence to maintain the wire so close to the ground, it was not the proximate cause of the injury. That required a conjunction of conditions and circumstances of an extraordinary nature which it is not reasonable to say a person of ordinary prudence and foresight should have anticipated.</p>