Stasulat v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

THOMPSON , J. This case was taken over after decision by the District Court of Appeal, First District, Division One. The facts are taken from the opinion by Mr. Justice Gray sitting pro tempore.

“The surviving mother, brother and two sisters of a lineman employed by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company sued the Pacific Gas and Electric Company to recover damages for his alleged wrongful death. They claimed that his death resulted from injuries which he received in a fall from a telephone pole on which he was working, and that the fall was due to his receiving an electric shock, caused by appellant’s negligence. As to such negligence, thej’ charged that appellant negligently permitted its power lines to sag and so contact a guy wire fastened to the telephone pole, that the guy wire became electrically charged by means of such contact, and that decedent received an electric shock [633]when he touched the guy wire. The jury found the facts as claimed by respondents, for it returned a verdict in their favor. Prom the judgment entered accordingly, appellant appeals, claiming the evidence is insufficient to establish (1) that its power lines contacted the guy wire, and (2) that, if they did, it was negligent in permitting them to do so.

“ ‘In considering appellant’s claims of the insufficiency of the evidence it is our duty to so construe the evidence as to support the contentions of respondent to the extent that it is fairly susceptible of such construction, and in cases of conflict to accept as true that evidence which tends to sustain the verdict, unless it is inherently so improbable as to be palpably false.’ (Gett v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co., 192 Cal. 621, 623 [221 Pac. 376].) Accordingly, only such evidence as is favorable to respondents will be stated. If several inferences can reasonably be deduced from the evidence, this court must accept that one which supports the verdict. (Gorman v. County of Sacramento, 92 Cal. App. 656 [268 Pac. 1083].)

“Three and one-half years before the accident, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company erected and thereafter maintained on the west side of Stevenson street eighty-five feet southerly of the southern line of McCoppin street, in the city of San Francisco, a terminal pole about twenty-five feet high above the ground. The pole was braced by a guy wire with one end anchored in the ground fifteen feet southerly of the pole and with the other end wrapped twice around the pole eighteen inches above the crossarm. The guy wire was prevented from slipping down by a ‘J’-hook (so called from its shape) forming part of it and placed on the inside or westerly side of the pole. A wooden crossarm, on which were fastened coils of wires, used to connect new subscribers, was affixed to the pole. The distance from the center' of the crossarm to the top of the pole was three feet. About four inches below the center of the erossarm, tied to the pole, there was a messenger wire which supported, by hangars, the communication cable. This cable passed down into the rear of a terminal box, fastened to the north side of the pole, from which telephone lines were distributed to patrons in the vicinity. This box was four and one-quarter feet high, one and one-half feet wide, and one foot deep, and had attached thereto a metal handle on each side near the top. Immediately below