Buell v. Utica Gas & Electric Co.

The plaintiff’s intestate, Charles E. Buell, was electrocuted while standing in a railroad car on a siding underneath the defendant’s high power transmission wire. The "forty-foot boom of a derrick apparently had struck the wire transmitting the electricity through Buell’s body. A verdict of $5,000 was set aside by the Appellate Division and the complaint dismissed.

The question on appeal turns on the duty which the defendant owed to the deceased. That the wire was extremely dangerous is apparent from the fact that it carried 44,000 volts of current.

On the 8th day of October, 1919, Charles A.…