Puskey v. Western Massachusetts Electric Co.

Puskey, at age fifteen, suffered bums from electric shock when he climbed a power transmission line tower belonging to the defendant Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMEC). It was, Puskey complains, negligent of WMEC not to have taken more effective steps to prevent children from climbing the tower in question and to permit the climbing pegs on its tower to come within two feet seven inches of the transmission line.2 A Superior Court judge heard the case without jury and concluded WMEC had not acted negligently. A judgment entered for WMEC, from which Puskey and his father have…