Annapolis Gas & Electric Light Co. v. Fredericks

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee brought suit against the appellant company in,the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County .to recover damages for an injury sustained, alleged to have been causea by contact with an electric wire charged with electricity, maintained and operated upon a public bridge connecting the,City of Annapolis and the village of Eastport. ,The declaration charges that the bridge is a public highway and the wires are hung and suspended over and upon poles controlled by the defendant upon the streets of the city and village and upon the bridge for the purpose of doing a general electric light business in the City of Annapolis and the village of Eastport. That the wires were permitted to become and be without proper insulation, and by reason thereof contact with the wires was dangerous to life, and the defendant while lawfully using and passing over the bridge without any negligence on his part came in contact with the wires and was injured. The record contains four bills of exceptions.

Three relate to the admissibility of evidence and the fourth as to the rulings of the Court on the prayers. The verdict and judgment were in favor of the plaintiff and the defendant has appealed. The first exception was taken to the ruling of the Court in allowing the plaintiff to testify as to the condition of the -wires subsequent to the injury. The plaintiff was asked the following question: “Did you make any examination of the wires at the place where you were injured after the injury; if so, how soon after ? “A. I went there early the next morning to see the condition of - the wires at the place where I was shocked and burned. “Q. What did you find to be the condition of the wires ? “A. I examined the wires early next morning at the place ⁵⁹⁹ where I was burned and found the wires in-very bad condition and uninsulated and also sagging down from a -foot to eighteen inches.” The general rule is well settled that evidence of the subsequent condition of the place where the accident occurs is not admissible to show a negligent condition at the time of the injury, because the question of negligence is to be determined by the actual condition at the time of the injury.

There are certain well-recognized qualifications and exceptions to this rule, but as the facts of this case do not bring it within any of those exceptions, they need not be discussed here. There was no evidence apon the part of the plaintiff or the other witnesses to the qffect that the insulation of the wires was defective or that they sagged down from -a foot to eighteen inches at the time of the alleged injury at the point or place where the accident is alleged to have happened. In the case of Electric Light Co. v. Lusby, 100 Md. 650 , it was said it was error to admit this character of testimony, because the effect of the testimony as introduced was to show that the insulation of certain of the defendants’ wires was defective at other points and on other occasions than at the piont of contact where the accident happened. The testimony therefore was too remote and misleading and presented an issue of negligence not involved in the case.

Ziehm v. United Electric Co., 104 Md. 52 . In this case, the wire was not on or over the highway, but was strung along the south side of the bridge over the water and at a distance of nine feet and five inches from the floor of the bridge. The evidence tended - to show that the wire as-originally constructed was properly placed and located as to the safety of the public, because it was beyond the reach of those properly using the bridge. The plaintiff testified that on the night of August 8th, 1907, he went down on the bridge to get the air.

While there he was attracted by the sound of a graphaphone and went to the south side of the bridge, and while standing on the floor of the bridge, leaning on the rail, between the second and third truss of the bridge from the ⁶⁰⁰ Eastport side, “a puff of wind blew my hat off, and I grabbed for it and grabbed a live electric wire.” It was clearly incumbent upon the plaintiff to show, by competent evidence, that the wire sagged or slacked at the time of the accident and at the point where he was injured— that is, between the trusses where he was standing on the bridge—otherwise there could be no recovery in the case. The condition of the wire on the day after the accident, under the facts of this case, was not legally