Cooley v. Public Service Co.
N.H. 1940 (1940)
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Rule of Law:
A defendant's duty of care is determined by what is reasonable under all circumstances and does not extend to taking precautions against a remote, rare harm if those precautions would increase the risk of a more serious and foreseeable harm to others.
Facts:
- During a heavy storm, several of the Public Service Company's high-voltage power lines broke and fell over an intersection.
- One of the fallen wires, carrying 2300 volts, came into contact with a telephone company's messenger wire, creating an electrical arc and a loud noise.
- At that moment, the plaintiff was engaged in a long-distance conversation on her telephone at her home approximately one mile away.
- The plaintiff heard a loud, explosive noise through the telephone receiver, which caused her to fall to the floor.
- As a result of the fright induced by the noise, the plaintiff developed traumatic neurosis, a rare condition, but she did not suffer any electrical shock.
Procedural Posture:
- The plaintiff sued the Public Service Company in a New Hampshire trial court for negligence.
- The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.
- The Public Service Company (defendant-appellant) appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire.
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Issue:
Does a power company have a legal duty to implement safety measures, such as guard baskets or wire insulation, to protect a telephone user from the rare harm of traumatic neurosis caused by a loud noise from a fallen power line, when those same measures would foreseeably increase the more severe risk of electrocution to the public?
Opinions:
Majority - Page, J.
No. A power company's duty of care does not require it to implement safety measures to prevent a remote harm when those measures would create a greater and more immediate risk of serious injury or death to the public. The court reasoned by balancing the competing duties owed by the Public Service Company: the duty to protect telephone users from the very rare harm of neurosis caused by noise, versus the duty to protect the public from the obvious and immediate danger of electrocution from downed live wires. The safety measures proposed by the plaintiff, such as wire baskets and insulation, were found to be outdated and could paradoxically increase the danger to the public by preventing the automatic circuit breaker from de-energizing a fallen wire. The risk of traumatic neurosis from noise is remote and less foreseeable, while the risk of death by electrocution is a more significant and foreseeable danger. The law will not impose a duty on a defendant that would require it to be negligent towards one party (the public) to be careful towards another (the plaintiff), creating a 'liable if you do and liable if you don't' dilemma. The burden was on the plaintiff to propose a safety measure that would protect her without endangering others, and she failed to do so.
Analysis:
This case illustrates the principle that the duty of care in tort law is not absolute but is shaped by foreseeability and a balancing of competing risks. It establishes that a defendant's conduct must be reasonable under all circumstances, which includes weighing the probability and severity of different potential harms to different groups of people. The decision reinforces that a defendant will not be held liable for failing to adopt a precaution that, while potentially preventing one type of harm, simultaneously creates a greater and more foreseeable risk of another, more severe harm. This principle is crucial in cases involving public utilities and complex technologies where safety measures often involve trade-offs.
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