Musil v. Barron Electrical Co-Operative

108 N.W.2d 652, 13 Wis. 2d 342, 1961 Wisc. LEXIS 461
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedApril 4, 1961
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 108 N.W.2d 652 (Musil v. Barron Electrical Co-Operative) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Musil v. Barron Electrical Co-Operative, 108 N.W.2d 652, 13 Wis. 2d 342, 1961 Wisc. LEXIS 461 (Wis. 1961).

Opinion

Dieterich, J.

Allen Musil and Velma were married in 1951. They were living on an 80-acre farm owned by Allen’s father. They worked the farm and Allen also did outside work. The deceased, Velma, was twenty-eight years of age on June 4, 1958, the day she was electrocuted. She did the work of a farm woman, doing the housework, working in the fields, and in the barn. They had four children, two boys, age six and four, two girls, age three and two.

In 1939, the defendant Barron Electrical Co-operative constructed an electric power line past the Musil farm and hooked up the Musil buildings for electricity. Before the line was connected by the Co-operative, Musil’s father hired two electricians to wire the house and other buildings. These men installed the electric meter-socket box on the east side of the house and extended the cable up from the meter-socket box to the weatherhead leaving three wires to be connected to the Co-operative’s service wires coming in from the road.

The Co-operative extended its three wires from the pole near the road where the transformer is located to the service pole some distance from the house, and from the service pole to the three house knobs it had installed on the side of the house. These wires were connected by the Co-operative to the wires leading through the weatherhead.

*346 The drip-loop connections were made by the Co-operative at a height of between eight and nine feet from the ground. The three connectors were left bare by the Co-operative.

See plaintiffs Exhibit 14 reproduced herewith. One wire was bare and exposed for a distance of one and five-eights inches, another, one and three-fourths inches, and the third was bare and exposed for a distance of two inches. All the *347 rest of the wires in both directions from the connectors were wrapped, taped, and insulated. The meter was read regularly by employees of the Co-operative until the mid-1940’s. Thereafter, a self-reading system was commenced.

In 1956, the plaintiff purchased a television set and Sears, Roebuck & Company installed an antenna which was 40 feet in height. The home was equipped with lightning rods which were connected to either one or two grounds. The employee of Sears connected the base of the tower to the lightning-rod cable by wrapping an aluminum wire around the bottom of the tower and winding it around the lightning-rod cable.

On June 4, 1958, there was a severe windstorm accompanied by rain in the area of the Musil farm, which knocked down power lines, blew shingles off the barn, took down a tree in the neighbor’s yard, and smashed the corncrib. The aerial or TV antenna on the Musil farmhouse was broken about 10 feet above the point where it was attached to the roof and the mast tipped over the edge of the roof into the vicinity of where the bare drip-loop connectors were installed by the Co-operative. Various guy wires which had been supporting the aerial were lying over the edge of the house in close proximity to the ground.

After the storm, the deceased, Velma Musil, went out on the roadway and had a conversation with her neighbor. Subsequently Mrs. Musil’s body was discovered by her children, the husband was not at home, and when witnesses arrived she was lying on her back with a guy wire in both hands, having been electrocuted.

Madeline Schlote, called as a witness on behalf of the Barron Electrical Co-operative, testified that she lived on the first farm south of the Musil farm. She knew Mrs. Musil in her lifetime. The last time Madeline Schlote talked to Mrs. Musil was just a few minutes before she was elec *348 trocuted. The conversation took place on the road halfway between their homes. Mrs. Musil informed her that the TV tower had blown down, that it was over the bedroom window and that it looked spooky.

The testimony of Reverend Benedict Bauer is that he was the pastor at Holy Trinity Church for the past eighteen years, that he knew the Musil family, and that she was a member of his church. He was called to the Musil home on the night of June 4, 1958, and when he arrived at the farm home Mrs. Musil was dead. She was lying near the window.

The abridged testimony of Carl H. Westerlund, who resides at Sarona, with twenty years of experience as an electrician, is:

“I received a call to go to the Musil home about 9 o’clock. Mrs. Musil was lying on the lawn approximately 10 feet from the house with her feet toward the wall of the house and with one guy wire grasped in her hand. She was on her back. She was at a slight angle to the building and her feet were about in line where the meter would be on the building. The aerial was broken and bent over so that the top part with the prongs was hanging over the eaves. The nearest ones were about four feet off the ground or close to that. They were pretty much horizontal. The top horizontal prong after the TV tower had tipped over became the bottom horizontal prong which was about four feet off the ground and continued up toward the eave of the roof. I wrapped a blanket around the wire so I could make a loop out of the blanket. I think the end of the wire was probably between two and four feet from where she had them grasped. I pulled back only about. four feet' before I pulled the wires out of her hands. The purpose of the blanket was to get something that was not a conductor. The blanket is a material that could not carry electricity. It is a type of insulator. The lights were on when I got there. I could not tell whether or not the wire that was in Mrs. Musil’s hand was hot or not at that timé. I remember distinctly that the north parallel spokes on this antenna were across the window because the lights were on in the house and that stands out *349 distinctly. I did not observe whether there were any bare connections in the meter loop at the house that night. I went back several days later. There was no insulation on the wire for about an inch at the point where the bare connectors were fastened at the junction and connection of the service wires to the wires extending from the weatherhead.”

Frank A. Havel, a registered professional land surveyor, testified on behalf of the plaintiff that he went to the Musil farm on June 11th to make certain measurements, and they were made of the location of the weatherhead, meter loop, the service entrance to the house, service-entrance pole, the location of the base of the TV tower, the location of the respective anchors related to the TV tower, the dimensions of the house, the location of it, and whatever pertained to the location of the service entrance. Fie testified that the weatherhead was nine and six-tenths feet above the ground, the meter was five and four-tenths feet above the ground and the meter loop, consisting of the meter itself, the meter connection and the service-entrance cable on the weather-head which consisted of the three projecting wires for the purpose of connecting onto the service-entrance head' from the Co-operative. That the height from the ground of the bottom connectors was eight and four-tenths feet, the center connector was eight and eight-tenths feet, and the top connector was nine and two-tenths feet above the ground.

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Bluebook (online)
108 N.W.2d 652, 13 Wis. 2d 342, 1961 Wisc. LEXIS 461, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/musil-v-barron-electrical-co-operative-wis-1961.