Brown v. Edison Electric Illuminating Co.

Schmucker, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The action in this case was brought against the appellee for damages sustained by the equitable appellant from coming in contact with an electric light wire charged with a high-tension current. The evidence introduced by the plaintiff tended to prove the following state of facts. The equitable appellant, who, at the time of receiving the injury complained of, was a boy eleven years old, was employed by one Burt, the proprietor of a store at No. 314 W. Pratt street, Baltimore, to clean up the store and discharge other minor duties.

There was a roof covering the front window to the store about two feet six inches wide, which extended across the entire front of the building just below the second-story window. An open rainspout or gutter ran along the front edge of this roof and discharged its contents by a down-spout attached to the front of the building. The electric light current was introduced to the store by two primary wires extending from a pole, standing some ⁴⁰⁵ seventy-five feet easterly from the building, to glass insulators which were attached by iron brackets about six inches long to the easternmost end of the small roof of which we have spoken. From the insulators the wires passed into a fuse-box and then into a converter from which the current was carried by secondary wires into the store.

The primary wires from the pole to the converter were charged with a current of one thousand volts, which is highly dangerous, if not fatal, to the life of anyone coming in contact with the naked wire; but the secondary wires extending from the converter into the store were only charged with the comparatively harmless current of fifty volts. The primary wire from the pole to the insulator nearest the house, and not more than six inches from it, was jointed just beyond the insulator, and at the time of the accident the point of the jointed wire was left sticking up and entirely uncovered. The same wire was exposed naked by reason of defective insulation at two other places about two or three inches beyond the insulator. Ou June 5th, 1897 the equitable appellant by direction of his employer went upon the roof which covered the store window for the purpose of cleaning it and the rainspout attached to it, He was seen, by a passer-by, on his knees upon the roof apparently cleaning the gutter, and shortly afterwards he was found lying insensible upon the roof with his head in contact with the exposed joint in the primary electric light wire nearest to the house.

The flesh of his head was burning at the point of contact with the wire when he was found and he was otherwise injured by the electric current which passed into his body from the wire. No one witnessed the accident but the appellant himself testified that he was stooping over the edge of the roof at its eastern end resting on his left hand while endeavoring with his right hand to remove a ball which had lodged in the down-spout,when his left hand slipped and he immediately became unconscious. There was also evidence tending to show that the primary ⁴⁰⁶ wire, which was constantly charged with the deadly current, was not covered with the most approved and effective insulating material even where it ran in close proximity to the front of the house. At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s testimony the Court, upon application of the defendant, took the case away from the jury on the ground that there was no legally sufficient evidence to entitle the plaintiff to recover.

The appellee was engaged in supplying electric light to streets and houses by means of a current of so high voltage that the business in which it was thus engaged was in the highest degree dangerous to all persons liable to come into contact with the wires which carried the current. These wires were strung on poles erected in the streets of a large city which were likely to be at all times occupied, and at many times crowded with persons lawfully passing through them. The same dangerous current was, in the course of the business, conducted by wires strung from the poles standing along the curbstone, across the sidewalk to the houses to be lighted by it. Outside of any contractual relation between the parties to this suit the very nature of the business thus conducted by the appellee imposed upon it a legal duty toward every person, who in the exercise of a lawful occupation in a place where he had a legal right to be, was liable to come in contact with the wires charged with this invisible but deadly power.

This duty has been recognized and enforced by the Court in many