21 Ga. App. 442 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1917
It is pnly necessary to refer briefly to the second headnote above. The court instructed the jury that there is a duty of persons or “municipal corporations, operating an electric-light system for the purpose of transmitting electricity over its lines of wires and supplying light in and to the houses of patrons, of properly conducting and maintaining their wires, their poles, their transformers; .[and they] are bound to provide such safeguards against danger as are best known and most extensively used, and all necessary protection must be afforded to avoid casualties which may be reasonably expected.” This excerpt from the charge of the court is objected to upon the ground that it was for the jury to determine whether the defendant had exercised ordinary care in providing the apparatus actually employed, and that this charge did not require of the defendant the degree of diligence which is-exacted by law. In Columbus Railroad Co. v. Kitchens, 142 Ga. 677 (83 S. E. 529, L. R. A. 1915C, 570), the Supreme Court laid down the rule as follows': “Where an electric-light company maintains overhead wires from its plant to a residence of one of its patrons, for the purpose of supplying light to the house, the company is under the duty to employ such approved
The cases last quoted from, or referred to above, support in principle the view that an instruction placing upon a municipality furnishing electric-lights or electric current the duty of not only employing “such approved apparatus in general use as would bo reasonably necessary to prevent injury to the house, person, or property therein, arising from electricity,” etc., but also the additional burden of using apparatus which must not only be thus rea
Proof that a municipal corporation operating an electric-light system provided such safeguards against danger “as are best known and most extensively used” might authorize a finding that it had' not been negligent in employing the particular apparatus actually used to prevent injury from the electrical current transmitted or supplied by the corporation; but no rule of diligence would require the municipality “to provide such safeguards against danger as are best known and most extensively used,” in order to relieve itself from the consequences resulting from defects in its electric apparatus or system, for the-apparatus or system actually employed might in fact be superior to and safer than similar apparatus or a different system “best known and most extensively used.” The employment of such safeguards against dangers “as are best known and most extensively used,” by a person or municipality operating an electric-light system, might relieve
However, the error in placing upon the defendant in this case the burden of providing such safeguards against danger “as are best known and most extensively used,” in addition to the burden of providing such apparatus in general use-as would be reasonably necessary to prevent the injury (Columbus Railroad Co. v. Kitchens, supra), could not be held to have influenced the jury in arriving at their verdict in favor of the plaintiff, when considered in the light of the pleadings and the particular facts developed at the trial; and therefore will not require a reversal. It will be borne in mind that no. recovery was sought upon the ground that the defendant had failed to provide safeguards of the proper kind and quality to prevent the alleged injury, and it was not alleged, in the petition nor was there any evidence to the effect that the apparatus, to wit, a certain transformer, provided by the defendant to safeguard against danger the consumers of the electric current furnished by the city, was not all that the exercise of the appropriate degree of care and diligence by the city required, and was likewise not such a safeguard against danger as was “best known and most extensively used.” Instead, a recovery was sought upon the distinct ground that (in addition to the danger arising from the alleged fact that the insulating covering had worn off from, some of the wires) the transformer through which the plaintiff received the current of electricity that injured her was riot sufficient in capacity to reduce a current of such high voltage as passed over the primary line on the occasion in question, and was not adequately charged or filled with oil, which still further diminished its reducing capacity; and the undisputed evidence tended to show that the transformer used was in fact as good as any generally employed, and was such a transformer as was “best known and most extensively used,” but, notwithstanding its quality and
Taking the case as a whole, it appears that there was no reversible error, and that the verdict against the city was authorized by the evidence.
Judgment affirmed.