Dow

Plaintiff was a “trouble shooter” in the employ of the defendant telephone company. His principal duty was to discover and repair minor difficulties attending the telephone service, defective telephones, fallen wires, weakness of batteries, and grounding of wires. Upon the day of the accident he had been sent to locate and remedy a trouble with the telephone belonging to the Pure Water Company. He had been told by his superior that the telephone of the Pure Water Company was “noisy,” and had asked in return if there was “anything hot on it.” He was told in reply that it seemed to be “a ground.” By “a ground” is meant the interruption of the current by the crossing of wires or the breaking and falling of a telephone wire to the earth, or against some surface that acts as a conductor of electricity, and interrupts its continued flow along its proper wire. By his question whether there was anything “hot” on the wire plaintiff’s meaning was whether the telephone wires of the Pure Water Company had become surcharged from any cause with a dangerous quantity of electric fluid. Inasmuch as a telephone wire carries only about thirty volts, there is no danger attendant upon working amongst…