OSBORN v. CHICKASHA GAS & ELEC. CO.

OSBORN v. CHICKASHA GAS & ELEC. CO.
1926 OK 562
251 P. 480
123 Okla. 198
Case Number: 16665
Decided: 06/15/1926
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

OSBORN
v.
CHICKASHA GAS & ELEC. CO.

Syllabus

¶0 1. Negligence--Burden of Proof--Causal Effect--Circumstantial Evidence. The burden is on the plaintiff to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence acts of negligence on the part of the defendant having a causal effect in producing or contributing to the happening of the accident, which results in the injury suffered by the plaintiff. The causal effect may be shown by circumstantial evidence of existing conditions which are reasonably calculated to contribute to, or result in the accident.
2. Disposition of Cause. Record examined; held, to be sufficient to support judgment in favor of the defendant.

F. E. Riddle and Holding & Herr, for plaintiff in error.
Geo. M. Green and Melton & Melton, for defendant in error.

STEPHENSON, C.

¶1 Annie May Osborn commenced her action against the Chickasha Gas & Electric Company for the wrongful death of her husband. The negligence charged is in substance: (a) That while her husband was in the employ of the defendant, the latter failed and refused to furnish the employe a safe place in which to perform his work; (b) that the duties of the deceased required the latter to cross a body of swift water; that the defendant failed to provide the employe and his associates with a boat in suitable repair to be operated on the water; that the defendant failed to place some experienced person in charge of the boat for its guidance and direction in traveling over the moving water; (c) that the negligent and wrongful acts charged were the proximate cause of the boat being swept over the dam, which resulted in the drowning of plaintiff's husband. The defendant filed a general denial, and further alleged that the decedent was familiar with the dangers, if any, attendant on the performance of the duties he was engaged in at the time of his death; that the decedent was not in the employ of the defendant at the time of the accident.