## Facts

- Arthur Bernier, Jr. (18) and Patricia J. Kasputys (15) were walking on a sidewalk in Lexington Center, a busy shopping area.
- Alice Ramsdell, driving a 1968 Buick, pulled from a curb near the Massachusetts Avenue–Muzzey Street intersection to turn right onto Muzzey Street.
- Ramsdell’s car collided at low speed with a Cadillac driven by John Boireau shortly after entering Muzzey Street.
- Ramsdell testified the impact caused her to lose control; her car accelerated across Massachusetts Avenue, mounted the opposite sidewalk, and struck an electric light pole.
- The pole, owned and maintained by Boston Edison Company, broke and fell onto the sidewalk, striking both plaintiffs and causing serious injuries.
- Evidence, including expert testimony, described the pole as relatively rigid and top-heavy and as likely to shear and fall onto the sidewalk when struck at moderate speeds, rather than failing in a safer manner.
- Plaintiffs sued Ramsdell and Boireau for negligence and later added Boston Edison, alleging negligent design, selection, construction, and maintenance of the pole.
- After a consolidated jury trial, verdicts were returned against Ramsdell and Boston Edison; Boireau was found not liable.

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient evidence permitted a finding that Boston Edison, as designer or co-designer and maintainer of the pole, breached a duty to design and maintain the pole to avoid reasonably foreseeable risks to pedestrians from vehicle impacts in that setting.
2. Whether Boston Edison’s alleged negligence could be found a substantial contributing cause of plaintiffs’ injuries despite Ramsdell’s negligent driving.
3. Whether prejudgment interest against Boston Edison properly ran from the date the actions were commenced rather than the later date when Boston Edison was joined.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the judgments against Boston Edison.
- The court held the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find Boston Edison negligent in the pole’s design and maintenance given the foreseeability of vehicle–pole collisions and pedestrian exposure in a busy commercial area.
- The court held the jury could find Boston Edison’s negligence was a substantial contributing factor in causing plaintiffs’ injuries, even though Ramsdell’s conduct initiated the event sequence.
- The court upheld calculation of prejudgment interest from the date the actions were commenced, not from the date Boston Edison was added as a defendant.

## Legal Principles

- An entity that designs (or co-designs) and controls maintenance of equipment placed in public ways must anticipate the environment of use and design against reasonably foreseeable risks attending that use.
- In a location with substantial pedestrian traffic and routine vehicle presence, it can be foreseeable that vehicles may strike fixed roadside structures; design decisions must account for the risk of harm to lawful sidewalk users.
- Negligent design or maintenance may constitute a concurrent cause with negligent driving when the design influences how the structure fails and whether it creates a hazard to pedestrians.
- Under Massachusetts prejudgment interest rules applied here, interest on damages runs from the date the action is commenced rather than from the date a particular defendant is joined.

## Conclusion

The court sustained liability against a utility for negligent pole design and maintenance where the pole’s failure mode created a foreseeable risk to pedestrians in a commercial area and held that such negligence could be a substantial contributing cause alongside negligent driving; prejudgment interest was properly computed from the filing date of the actions.


Bernier v. Bos. Edison Co., 380 Mass. 372 (1980)