9 Ga. App. 98 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1911
1. -The court erred in dismissing the plaintiff’s petition.
2. A corporation which, in the conduct of its business, employs a wire charged with a dangerous current of electricity, liable, if it should come in contact with the wires of another corporation, to cause injury to employees of the latter while engaged in the performance of their duties, owes to such employees not only the duty of observing ordinary diligence to prevent such contact, but also the duty of inspection for the purpose of discovering and discontinuing such contact.
3. An electric-light company, engaged in conveying electricity by overhead wires over .the streets of a city, is under the duty of keeping its wires so insulated as at all times to prevent, or at least to guard against, the effect of objects coming in contact with them, regardless of the cause which brings about the contact. An electric-liglit company which is negligent in not having its wires properly insulated can not, if injury results therefrom, relieve itself from the consequences of its own fault by showing that a telephone company has also been negligent in failing to take sufficient precautions to guard against possible contact of the wires of the two companies.
4. An employee of a telephone company, who, while engaged in the performance of his duties, is injured by an electric current set in motion by contact of wires of the telephone company with wires of another corporation, is not, as related to the latter corporation, a trespasser; and .the degree of diligence due by the latter corporation to the employees of the telephone company is the same as extends to all other persons lawfully using the streets — that of ordinary diligence.
5. “In an action founded on negligence, mere general averments of negligence are sufficient as against a general demurrer.” Hudgins v. Coca-Cola, Bottling Co., 122 Ga. 695 (50 S. E. 974). In the petition in the present case the acts of negligence are set out with sufficient clearness.
6. “The question of what is ordinary care and what is negligence is one exclusively for the jury, and the court should not take this question from their consideration.” Killian v. A. & K. R. Co., 79 Ga. 236 (4 S. E. 165, 11 Am. St. R. 410). Whether the deceased in this case exercised ordinary care was a question exclusively for the jury.
7. Where a petition alleges that the person injured was at the time of the injury free from fault or negligence, and was in the exercise of due care and diligence, and there are no facts set out which disprove the statement, it is error to sustain a general demurrer. A special demurrer is required to “put its finger upon the very point” as to which the defendant seeks information, and as it can not, upon a general demurrer, be declared /that the general statements made are untrue, neither can it, upon general demurrer,' be adjudged that they are not sufficiently specific.
Judgment reversed.
cited: 97 Ga. 663; 15 Cyc. 472-3-4; 64 L. R. A. 101; 31 L. R. A. 570, 572, 577; 122 Ga. 695; 79 Ga. 234 (11); 126 Ga. 710; 128 Ga. 687 (4); 132 Ga. 127, 135; 124 Ga. 1050; 5 Ga. App. 788 (2, a, b, c.)
cited: 97 Ga. 663; 57 N. Y. 453; 117 Iowa, 451; 31 C. C. A. 499; 64 Fed. 287; 61 Ark. 381; 31 L. R. A. 566; 1 Joyce, Elec. L. § 438 (B); Civil Code of 1895, § § 3912-13; 54 Ga. 84; 66 Ga. 71; 73 Ga. 746; 86 Ga. 177; 103 Ga. 847; 106 Ga. 786.