61 P.2d 101 | Kan. | 1936
Plaintiffs sued for damages for the death of their daughter, Stella Mae Snook, from electricity alleged to have been negligently furnished by defendant. A jury trial resulted in judgment for plaintiffs for $4,500. Defendant has appealed.
The city of Winfield is a city of the second class operating under the commissioner-manager form of government. It owns and operates gas, water and electric utilities. It sells electric energy to those within or outside the city who desire to use it. About 1917 it constructed a high-tension electric line, carrying 6,600 volts, several miles west of the city, where it had electric pumps for its waterworks. It sold electric energy to persons living near this line who desired to purchase it. In 1924 the plaintiff, A. H. Snook, and his neighbor, Earl Caldwell, farmers who live near this high line and about five miles from Winfield, desired electric energy for use in their homes. Caldwell went to the city manager, a Mr. Welfelt, and made the arrangements for its use. Welfelt told him that they would have to pay the expense of building the line from their houses to the high line, including the cost of the transformer to reduce the current for their use to 110 volts, and of course wire their own premises. He told Caldwell the kind of a transformer, wires and other equipment to be used; in fact, he either purchased this for them, or furnished it to them from the city’s supply, bills for which were presented by the city to Caldwell and Snook and paid by them. Snook and Caldwell bought the poles from the telephone company and set them. Perhaps also they strung the wires. They had their respective houses wired by doing the work themselves, or having someone other than the city do it. When that was done they notified the city manager. Pie sent the city’s agents and employees out to put in the transformers. They also put a meter in at each residence, for which the consumers made a deposit to the city, and inspected the line and its construction. They told Snook and Caldwell that if anything went wrong with the circuit not to attempt to fix it themselves, but to notify the city. The understanding or agreement was that the city would furnish to them the same service and charge the same rates for electricity used as it furnished and charged patrons who resided in the city. After this was done the city began furnishing them with electricity. About the 15th of each month someone from the city electric department would read the meters, the
At the Caldwell place there was also evidence of a strong electric current on his pump. When Mr. Caldwell undertook to adjust a screw on the pump with his pliers they were thrown from his hand across the basement and he received a severe shock. On Saturday
While this statement of the facts omits many details shown by the evidence, we think it sufficiently comprehensive to present the issues involved. There is no serious controversy over the amount of the judgment if plaintiffs are entitled to recover; hence it is not necessary to state the evidence as to the amount of damages.
We turn now to the legal questions governing the case. When a city in its proprietary capacity goes into the business of generating electric energy and selling it to its inhabitants and others it is liable for its negligence in conducting the business to the same extent and under the same circumstances as a private corporation would be. This is well settled in this state and elsewhere. (43 C. J. 420, 421; 19 R. C. L. 1109; Curtis on The Law of Electricity, p. 629; Hinze v. City of Iola, 92 Kan. 779, 783, 142 Pac. 947.) Electric energy is an exceedingly dangerous commodity, and one who generates and distributes it is bound to exercise care commensurate with such danger. (Railway Co. v. Gilbert, 70 Kan. 261, 78 Pac. 807; Followill v. Gas & Electric Co., 113 Kan. 290, 293, 214 Pac. 430; Worley v. Kansas Electric Power Co., 138 Kan. 69, 75, 23 P. 2d 494.) These principles are not seriously controverted in this case.
Appellant’s main contention on this appeal grows out of the fact that Snook and Caldwell paid the cost of constructing the line and installing the transformer from which electricity was taken from the city’s high line, and also at their own expense wired their buildings and put in their electrical equipment. Appellant argues that when a producer of electricity delivers it at a certain point to a consumer
Irrespective of ownership or control of the distribution lines and appliances there is testimony that defendant knew there was something seriously wrong at the Snook place. As early as the middle of September its meter reader was informed that the meter at times ran backwards, and expressed the view that it indicated something was wrong, which apparently he did not understand, and the cause of which defendant made no investigation to determine. On Sunday, October 1st, three of defendant’s men were at the Snook place to investigate the trouble and make repairs. They found fuses blown out at the transformer and at the Snook home, and replaced them. They found the insulation burned off the wires leading to the pump in the basement, which would not have happened with the use of a normal 110-volt current. They were told that the meter sometimes ran backwards, and discussed this among them
Quite a little is said in the argument as to how the execessive current of electricity got into the Snook home and the appliances. A test of the wires leading from the transformer to the Snook home on October 1st and on October 7th showed only the standard 110 volts of electricity passing over those wires. On October 5th, the day of the death of plaintiffs’ daughter, the electrician from Arkansas City, testing the wires leading from the meter at the Snook home to his appliances, found them to be carrying only what is recognized as the standard 110 volts of electricity. These tests indicated that the excessive voltage of electricity did not come into the Snook home over the wires from the transformer. There is evidence, however, that there was electricity in the Snook home which did not come in over those wires. A ground current caused the meter to run backwards at times, and on October 5th, when examined by the electrician from Arkansas City, the electric current on the pump in the basement at the Snook home was stronger, certainly more than 1,000 volts, and estimated at from 2,000 to 4,000 volts. He testified this electricity could have come through the ground from the transformer 45 rods away. Defendant’s witnesses gave no credence to that view. Their testimony was to the effect that when electricity is turned into the ground it tends to neutralize itself; that it seeks the way of least resistance; that one cannot tell in advance in what direction it will go, and that it would be unusal. for it to travel underground from the transformer to the pump in Snook’s basement. The theory that a heavy charge of electricity put into the ground at one point might travel underground to another and cause damage has been considered in a few cases. See Kansas City v. File, 60 Kan. 157, 55 Pac. 877, and Burdick v. South County
Appellant complains of some of the language used by the court in its instructions. We have examined these instructions carefully and find them to be fully as favorable to defendant as the record warrants.
Appellant requested the court to submit nine special questions to the jury. The court submitted two of them and declined to submit the other seven. Appellant complains of that ruling. The questions the court declined to submit related to matters that were not in controversy. It was not error for the court to refuse to submit them.
We find no error in the case. The judgment of the court below is affirmed.