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Darling v. Central Vermont Public Service Corp.9/21/2000
ENTRY ORDER
In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:
Plaintiffs Elizabeth and Daniel Darling, and Rebecca and Susan Caffery (the Darlings) appeal from a judgment entered in Windsor Superior Court following a jury verdict in favor of defendant Central Vermont Public Service Corporation (CVPSC). According to the Darlings, electricity escaped from nearby storm-damaged power lines, set fire to their rented house and garage, and destroyed all of their personal belongings. The Darlings sued CVPSC, alleging negligence and strict product liability. The court refused to instruct the jury to apply the doctrine of strict product liability, and the case was sent to the jury solely on the theory of negligence. The jury returned a special verdict finding the Darlings seventy-seven percent negligent and CVPSC twenty-three percent negligent. Consequently, the court entered judgment for CVPSC. See 12 V.S.A. § 1036 (comparative negligence); Howard v. Spafford, 132 Vt. 434, 438, 321 A.2d 74, 76 (1974) (under 12 V.S.A. § 1036, contributory negligence bars recovery where plaintiff's negligence exceeds fifty percent of total causal negligence). On appeal, the Darlings contend that the court erred by refusing to instruct the jury to apply the doctrine of strict product liability. We affirm.
On the night of January 19, 1996, a tree limb fell across three 7200-volt power lines and one neutral line located between 600 and 1,800 feet from the Darlings' rented house. The tree limb, lying across the live wires while still attached to the tree trunk, created an alternative ground that released current at approximately 7200 volts into the earth. CVPSC had a safety system in place to prevent release of such fault, or escaping, current. Either excessive voltage flowing back from the tree trunk along the neutral line should have tripped a circuit breaker on a preceding pole, or the escaped current taken back to the circuit breaker by ground rods in the delivery system should have tripped it. Neither method, however, triggered the breaker, which failed to stop the current. Instead, the current traveled into and along the wet earth.
According to the Darlings, the current flowed into their metal well casing, into which their house was also grounded with a copper grounding wire. The Darlings further contend that the current traveled into their garage through the copper grounding wire. They claim that the continuous and excessive current overloaded their electrical wiring and appliances, causing their garage and house to catch on fire. The garage and house, including most of the Darlings' personal belongings, were completely destroyed.
CVPSC, however, contends that the fire was caused by a space heater in the garage which the Darlings had left plugged in and that this situation was further exacerbated by a damaged extension cord linking the garage to the house wiring.
The Darlings sued CVPSC, alleging negligence based on the failure of CVPSC's neutral and ground rod circuit breaker system. They also alleged strict product liability, contending that because CVPSC failed to control its "product," the electricity crossed into the house wiring system in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition. The trial court refused to instruct the jury on the doctrine of strict product liability, concluding that the Darlings had not met their burden of proving that the electricity was defective and unreasonably dangerous. The Darlings appealed to this court.
To be entitled to a jury instruction, a plaintiff "must establish a prima facie case on each of the elements" of its theory of the case. State v. Knapp, 147 Vt. 56, 59, 509 A.2d 1010, 1011 (1986). In Zalesk
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