62 P. 378 | Or. | 1900
after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.
An electric light company that has erected its poles and wires in the streets of a municipality, with the consent of the proper authorities, is not an absolute insurer against accident therefrom. It is only bound to exercise care and diligence in the erection and maintenance of its system proportionate to the danger : Croswell, Electricity, § 236; Keasbey, Electric Wires (2 ed.), § 236, et seq.; Denver Consol. Elec. Co. v. Simpson, 21 Colo. 371 (31 L. R. A. 566, with note; 41 Pac..499)—and when it has fulfilled this duty it has discharged its entire obligation, and its liability ceases. The question of whether or not it has exercised reasonable care is for the jury to decide upon the facts of each particular case, except when reasonable minds could not possibly differ in their conclusions upon the facts. The amount of care necessary, of course, varies with the danger which is incurred by negligence ; and, in determining the question, it is proper for the jury to take into consideration the location of the lines, whether in a thickly or sparsely settled portion of the municipality, the use to which they are to be put, the harmless or dangerous nature of the current to be transmitted over them, their remoteness or proximity to travelers on the highway, and any other circumstances affecting the case. But where, as the evidence here tends to show, the wires of a company supplying a city of the size and area of Portland have been prostrated in numerous places at the same time by reason of an unusual and unexpected storm, it is imposing upon the company a duty not required by any of the decisions to say that it cannot show, as an excuse for a delay in taking care of a
Reversed.