197 Mass. 477 | Mass. | 1908
The plaintiff has no ground of exception to the ruling made at the trial. By B. L. c. 106, §§ 71, 78, 74, under which this action is brought, recovery is denied unless the death of the employee is caused either by the negligence of the employer, or of a person for whose negligence the employer is responsible. If the record is somewhat voluminous, the essential features relating to this question are easily distinguishable. The electric wires of the defendant’s system having become dangerous for want of proper insulation, new wires were to be substituted, and a gang of men, including the decedent, who was an experienced lineman, were sent out to perform the work, under the direction of a general foreman of the company. The old wires when in position rested on cross arms of six pins each, equally divided by the pole. Of these wires, the second in each group was used to carry a current of electricity of sufficient voltage to operate motors, while those remaining, consisting of two on each side nearest the pole, and two at each end of the cross arm, respectively designated as the “ pole pin ” and “ end pin wires,” were used to supply electricity for running the lights. If the current in the motor wires was not dangerous to life, each of the lighting wires was charged with an alternating current, sufficiently high to cause the death of those who might come into contact with them. The pole and end pin wires on the street side were left uncharged, but during the process of reconstruction the corresponding wires on the other side of the arm, where the decedent stood, were in operation while new wires were being substituted. In the substitution, the new wires after being raised were tied in with the old on the in- • sulators by the use of “ short tie wires,” and while doing this work the plaintiff’s husband stood on a second cross arm a little more than two feet below the first. Before tying the end pin wires, the motor wire had to be untied, and, after that had been attached to the insulator, retied. It is manifest from the testi
Exceptions overruled.