47 Ind. App. 406 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1910
— Appellee’s decedent was an Indianapolis policeman. On the morning of July 13, 1906, he was on duty, and at about 3:15 o ’clock approached a police patrol box to call up headquarters and report, as his duty required. It was a rainy night. He was accompanied by a companion policeman, who was about fifteen feet back of him. When he put his key in the key hole of the box, he was thrown about nine feet and killed. The cause of the accident was a high current. of electricity with which the city telephone wires had in some manner become charged. This action was brought against appellant Indianapolis Light and Heat Company, appellant The Indianapolis Telephone Company, and the Central Union Telephone Company. At the close of the
The record contains about eleven hundred typewritten pages, a large number of which consists of the stenographer’s report of evidence. It is shown thereby that there had been a storm early in the night, and before 2 o ’clock the employes of the light and heat company were trying to locate trouble on its lines.
Appellee’s theory was that the wires of the Indianapolis
The owner of a ferocious tiger is bound to confine it, or if it escapes and kills he is responsible. The high electric current is more deadly than any tiger. It kills by a touch, and its presence is only discovered when the mischief has been done; so that those who generate such currents ought, on principle, to be made insurers against damage thereby done. The authorities do not go this far, however, and for
This part of the appeal is presented by the motion for a new trial, and when it is disposed of, very little of substance remains for consideration.
Other questions have been argued and have been examined, without finding any reason for reversal.
The judgment is affirmed.