Kelly v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.

The plaintiff, a lineman with twenty-three years’ experience, was directed by his foreman to take down a side feed span, which was a copper wire stretched across the street between two poles. In order to take up the slack in the feed span, the plaintiff, after mounting the ladder, tied one end of a hand line to the wire and was tying the other end around the pole, when the foreman told him to throw it up over the feed wire and to the ground, where another man would hold it. He then proceeded to unscrew the Brooklyn insulator, which also served to hold the wire to the pole and to keep it taut;…