[1] Negligence — Generation and Transmission of Electricity -- Duty to Make Wires Safe.—The duty of a public service corporation engaged in the business of generating and transmitting electricity is not an absolute duty to insulate or make its wires safe in any particular manner; its duty is to make the wires safe under all the exigencies offered by the surrounding circumstances.

[2] Id.—Breaking of Guy Wire —• Action for Personal Injuries — Duty to Anticipate Accident—Elements to be Considered.—In an action for damages for personal injuries caused by the alleged negligence of the defendant, a public service corporation engaged in the business of generating and transmitting electricity, in failing to take proper precautions against the breaking of its guy wires in such a way as to convey electricity from its live wires to a person on the ground, in determining whether the accident was one which the defendant should have anticipated and guarded against, the. jury should take into consideration the nature of the country in which the pole was situated, the occupations of the persons living thereabouts, the usual precautions taken by electric companies under similar circumstances, and such matters.

1. Duties and liabilities of electric companies, notes, 100 Am, St. Rep. 516; 52 lx. R. A. (N. S.) 587.

2. Liability of one maintaining electric wires over private property, as distinguished from public highway, for injuries received by

.adult coming in contact therewith, notes, 21 Ann. Cas. 374; Ann. Cas. 1918C[ 594; 46 L. R. A. 97.

[3] Id.—Exercise of Proper Care — Presumption That Jury Followed Instruction—Verdict.—Where, in such an action, the jury was instructed that the owner or operator of an electric plant is not an insurer against injury to other persons; that it has done all the law requires it to do if it has exercised the care in the matter of the construction and maintenance, operation, and inspection of its plant' necessary so that the same will not be a source of danger or injury to persons lawfully in the pursuit of their business or pleasure, and that the care which the law exacts from any corporation engaged in operating such an instrumentality is always in proportion to the degree of danger reasonably to be apprehended from the use of the means employed, the appellate court' must presume that the jury followed such instruction and, it having rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, that it found that the breaking of the guy wire in question was a danger reasonably to be apprehended.

[4] Id.—Duty to Anticipate Accident.—In this action, in view of the testimony concerning the known ways and means of so insulating guy wires as to eliminate danger to persons on the ground and the use for farming purposes of the field in which the pole was situated, the jury were justified in concluding that the defendant should have anticipated that the guy wire might be subjected to sufficient strain by contact with the usual instrumentalities employed in farming operations to cause a breaking or tearing away of the strands of the wire and a consequent sagging of the wire, and should have insulated its guy wires so as t'o avoid danger to others in the event of such occurrence.

[5] Id.—Accident Due to Intervening Cause—Duty to Anticipate —Proximate Cause of Injury.—Where the negligence of the defendant in failing to properly insulate its guy wires would not have caused the injury but for the entanglement of the horse in such wire, but this latter event, in view of the physical conditions of the country where the pole was situated and the use to which the land was put, was one which the defendant should have anticipated, its negligence and not the entanglement of the horse was the proximate cause of the injury.

[6] Id.—Eight to Assume Guy Wire Safe.—A person working around such a guy wire has a right to assume that it is safe, either by reason of its strength or by reason of proper insulation.

5. Proximate cause and intervening condition, note, 1 Ann. Cas. 230.

[7] Id.—Action by Insurance Company — Allegation of Status —• Omission of Implied Allegation.—In an action by an insurance company on a subrogated claim for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant, an allegation that prior to the date on which the accident happened the plaintiff, by its policy of insurance in writing, did insure a certain employer and its employees (which included the injured person) at the time of the making of the policy; that said policy was written under and in conformity with the terms of a certain act of the legislature, designated as the “Workmen’s Compensation, Insurance and Safety Act,” etc., carries with it an implied allegation that the plaintiff is an insurance carrier. The omission of an allegation necessarily implied from other allegations is immaterial.

[8] Id.—Insufficient Execution of Policy—Ratification by Payment—Right to Subrogation.—In this action by an insurance company on a subrogated claim for personal injuries, were it true that proof of the execution of the policy was insufficient, there was sufficient proof that the company ratified its policy and paid the money to the injured employee under said policy. In either event the claim would be lawful, and the insurance company would be entitled to be subrogated to the rights of the injured employee.