Locken

On May 20, 1942, the decedent, Anna Locken, was electrocuted by coming in contact with one of the wires of appellant’s 2300-volt electric transmission line while she was walking in Red Jacket Canyon in the Wallowa Mountains near the town of Cornucopia, about fifty miles northeast of Baker, Oregon. This action, commenced in the State Court and, because of diversity of citizenship, removed to the Federal Court, was brought by decedent’s widower on behalf of himself and the three minor children of decedent to recover damages for the wrongful death of decedent. The Court below, sitting without a jury, granted plaintiff judgment from which defendant appeals.

On the day of the accident, about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the decedent, who was a visitor at her mother’s home in Cornucopia, left Cornucopia with her mother to look for mushrooms. They walked along a generally travelled dirt road which extends about 1% miles between Cornucopia and appellant’s Union mine. This road crosses Red Jacket Canyon in close proximity to that Canyon crossing of appellant’s transmission line more fully described later. About a quarter of a mile up the road from Cornucopia decedent’s mother stopped to…