240 Pa. 91 | Pa. | 1913
Opinion by
In 1889 the defendant company erected a line of poles and wires on Norwegian street, in the Borough of Potts-ville, and eleven or twelve years later the United Telephone and Telegraph Company erected its poles and wires on the same street. In doing so it placed its poles between the wires of the defendant company and stretched its own wires above those of that company. George Hippie, the husband of the appellee, was an employee of the telephone company. On June 25, 1908, he was sent by it to repair its line of wires on Norwegian street, and it became necessary for him to climb up one of its poles, between the wires of the defendant company. It is an uncontradicted fact that, in so climbing, he received a shock from the electric current on one of the wires of the defendant company and, falling to the ground, was killed.
It is not disputed that the telephone company had lawfully erected its poles between the wires of the defendant company. The testimony on the part of the plaintiff tended clearly to show that the fall of the deceased was due to his coming in contact with an uninsulated part of one of the defendant company’s wires, and that it had had, for a long time, constructive notice of the condition of this wire. In view of this situation, the question of the negligence of the defendant as the proximate cause of the death of appellee’s husband was
The contributory negligence of the deceased was also, under all the evidence, for the jury, and this question was submitted to them in a charge in which no reversible error is discoverable. We find nothing in the answers to the points which are the subjects of the first, second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh assignments, nor in the charge of the court, calling for the resubmission of the case to a jury, and all the assignments are, therefore, overruled.
Judgment affirmed.