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Grattan v. Union Electric Company12/9/2003
Opinion Vote: AFFIRMED.
Sullivan, C.J., and Hoff, J., concur.
Opinion:
Plaintiffs, an injured driver and his wife, filed this personal injury action against the defendant utility to recover damages for injuries plaintiffs alleged to have suffered when driver's car came in contact with power lines that came down after another vehicle knocked over an off-road utility pole. Defendant moved for summary judgment on the grounds that driver's injuries were not reasonably foreseeable and defendant did not owe a legal duty to driver. Plaintiffs appeal from the entry of summary judgment in defendant's favor. We affirm.
In its motion for summary judgment, defendant set out the following facts, which were not denied and are deemed admitted: On or about February 3, 1992, plaintiff, Edward Grattan, was traveling west on Ladue Road, and observed a trash-hauling truck, driven by Daniel Pogue, traveling east on Ladue Road. The truck's right front tire left the pavement, and Mr. Pogue steered the truck back onto the pavement but lost control. The truck overturned and hit a utility pole owned by defendant Union Electric Company, located approximately nine feet, seven inches from the traveled portion of the south side of Ladue Road. The pole fell, breaking four other poles. One pole fell six to seven feet in front of Mr. Grattan's car, and six electrical wires landed on the car.
The pole that was struck in the collision had been installed in 1963 or 1964. The five poles that broke as a result of the February 3, 1992 incident were replaced with poles set in approximately the same locations.
Mr. Grattan and his wife, Katherine M. Grattan, (hereinafter, collectively, "plaintiffs") subsequently filed this lawsuit. Mr. Grattan sought to recover damages from defendant on the theory that it was negligent in "failing to adequately insulate or isolate said electrical lines" and "failing to adequately maintain, operate, install and monitor its equipment and electrical lines and in failing to adequately equip and maintain adequate ground-fault, or circuit interrupting equipment to de-energize said electrical lines in the event of a fault, disruption of the lines, or falling onto the public streets and highways of the State of Missouri." Mrs. Grattan sued for loss of consortium.
Defendant moved for summary judgment on the grounds that, as a matter of law, 1) its duty to insulate or isolate its energized lines to prevent injury is limited to injury that is reasonably foreseeable, 2) the event in which the truck left the traveled portion of the roadway and collided with a utility pole was not reasonably foreseeable, 3) an electric utility does not owe a duty to use circuit interrupting equipment or otherwise fuse for a fault current, and 4) no act or omission on the part of defendant was a proximate cause of plaintiffs' alleged injuries and damages. In support of its motion, defendant filed a statement of uncontroverted facts. Plaintiffs did not deny any of the factual statements in defendant's statement of uncontroverted facts, but they filed a response denying the legal bases for the summary judgment motion, to which they attached portions of the record. The trial court granted summary judgment in defendant's favor on the ground that there is "no duty on the part of the utility company to take precautions against such an off-road collision with a utility pole, because in the absence of very limited and special circumstances (which have not been shown in this case), such a collision is considered not reasonably foreseeable."
We review the grant of summary judgment de novo, and we view the record in the light most favorable to the party again
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