Ergo v. Merced Falls Gas & Elec. Co.

THE COURT.

The defendant has appealed from the judgment below and also from an order denying a new trial.

Plaintiff sued to recover damages caused by an electric shock received by him while he was in the service of the defendant. The basis of his complaint is that he was directed by defendant to work in a place where he would be in close proximity to the defendant’s wires charged with a high power and dangerous electric current, and that defendant negligently failed to inform him that .the electricity was then turned on to the wires, or of the dangers therefrom, that he did not know the current was on, and was ignorant of the dangers thereof and of the means of avoiding shocks therefrom, and that while working in that place as directed, he received a severe shock of electricity from said wires causing the damage sued for.

The defendant denied that it had directed the plaintiff to work in the dangerous place alleged, and alleged that it gave the plaintiff directions to avoid the wires in question and instructed him in regard to the dangers from the electricity carried by them, and that the accident was caused by his failing to observe due care with respect thereto while in proximity to the wires. Inasmuch as we have concluded that the latter defense is established by the plaintiff’s own testimony, we shall not refer to the place in which he was at work further than is necessary to elucidate his testimony.

The defendant is supplying electricity to the city of Merced and its inhabitants by electricity from a generating plant at Merced Falls on the Merced River. It is carried on three wires to a transformer house in Merced, whence it is distributed to the consumers. The accident occurred at the transformer house, which was then in course of construction. Plaintiff was working for defendant as a plumber’s helper, putting water pipes in said transformer house to connect with perforated cooling pipes on the roof thereof. The house had three roofs, but we are concerned with only two, which we shall call the main roof and the Upper roof. The main roof covers the entire house. The upper roof covers only eight feet in width of the main roof, four feet on each side of the comb thereof, and is

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nearly five feet above the main roof, with walls extending from its eaves down to the main roof, both at the ends and sides. The cooling pipes were situated on the upper roof, one on each side of the crest. The plaintiff and a plumber named Bone were laying pipes to connect the water main with these cooling pipes. The three power wires, from one of which plaintiff received the shock, extend from a pole near the south end of the house into the space between the two roofs and were there fastened to three insulators fifteen inches apart on a cross-arm from which they were carried to the transformers. As plaintiff understood and undertook to execute the directions of the defendant with respect to the manner of attaching these connecting pipes, it was necessary to run the pipe into the space between these two roofs, and there by means of an elbow continue it, by a so-called standpipe about five feet long, through the roof to a connection with the cooling pipes. It was while he was engaged in attaching this standpipe to the elbow below after it had been handed to him by Bone, who was on the upper roof above, through a hole which Bone had made in the roof for that purpose, that the plaintiff received the injury.