## Facts

- A public utility maintained overhead electric wires over a public bridge in Berlin, New Hampshire, including wiring to a lamp.
- Although the bridge lamp circuit was typically shut off during the day, other parts of the system carried current, creating a continuing risk that the bridge wires could become energized.
- Neighborhood boys regularly climbed onto horizontal bridge girders above the walkway and used them as a play area.
- Evidence showed the utility had notice of this practice, including through a complaint by its foreman referencing boys’ use of the bridge and the company’s wires.
- A 14-year-old boy was sitting on a girder, lost his balance, and began to fall.
- While falling, he grabbed a nearby wire, received a fatal electric shock, and died.

## Issues

1. Whether an electric utility owes a duty of reasonable care to protect children whose presence near high-risk wires is known or reasonably foreseeable, even if they are trespassing on the bridge structure.
2. Whether the utility’s failure to insulate, relocate, or otherwise safeguard the wires could be found negligent given the foreseeable risk of accidental energization.
3. How damages should be measured when electrocution occurs during a fall that, absent electrocution, may have independently caused death or serious injury.

## Decision

- The court held there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find the utility owed a duty of reasonable care to foreseeable child trespassers and breached that duty by failing to take practical precautions.
- The court rejected the claim that the boy’s wrongful position on the bridge structure eliminated the utility’s duty where his presence near the wires was known or reasonably anticipated.
- The court held the case was not appropriate for a directed verdict on damages; the jury had to decide what likely would have happened from the fall absent electrocution.
- The court limited recoverable damages depending on the jury’s findings:
  - If the fall would have been fatal, wrongful-death expectancy damages were unavailable; recovery could be limited to conscious suffering attributable to the electric shock.
  - If the fall would have caused serious but non-fatal injury, damages were limited to the difference between normal earning capacity and the earning capacity the boy would have had with the fall-related impairment.
- The defendant’s exception to the denial of its directed-verdict motion was overruled.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant must exercise reasonable care to avoid harming “known trespassers,” including persons whose presence is actually known or reasonably to be expected.
- When a defendant knows children regularly come into dangerous proximity to electrical equipment, reasonable care may require preventive measures (such as insulation, relocation, or protective construction) to reduce foreseeable contact risks.
- Foreseeable risk exists even if a circuit is normally de-energized when the system allows accidental energization from other lines.
- A plaintiff must prove not only negligent conduct but compensable loss caused by that negligence; damages must reflect the injury attributable to the defendant’s act.
- When negligence hastens death or worsens an injury in the presence of an independent, imminent hazard, damages may be restricted to the incremental loss caused by the negligence (including conscious suffering or reduced earning capacity), as determined by the factfinder.

## Conclusion

The court held that an electric utility with notice that children frequently climbed near its bridge wires could be found negligent for failing to take reasonable precautions against foreseeable energization and contact, but that damages must be confined to the additional harm caused by electrocution, measured against what the fall likely would have caused absent the shock.


Dillon v. Twin State Gas & Elec. Co., 85 N.H. 449, 163 A. 111 (1932)