Costa Mesa : No Negligence Verdict for Electrocution Case

A Superior Court jury Monday refused to award any damages to the mother of a youth who was electrocuted almost 4 years ago when he came into contact with a power line while climbing a tree.

Nancy Myers of Costa Mesa had sought to convince jurors at the Santa Ana trial that her son, Noel Myers, 15, had died because of the negligence of Southern California Edison Co., the firm that had been contracted to trim the tree, and the family whose property included the tree.

Myers’ argument was that the defendants never warned her son or any of the other neighborhood children who often played on the tree about the dangers and that the defendants failed to take precautions to prevent such an accident.

The defendants countered that, in climbing the tree, Noel alone was responsible for the accident. He had touched a power line in so doing, was electrocuted, and fell about 30 feet to the ground. He died a week later.

“I was shocked by the jury’s decision,” Myers said after the verdict was delivered.

“I still can’t believe that they wouldn’t find some minor guilt among these people. Just the fact that the jury said ‘someone else was partly to blame for this’ would have helped, but they didn’t even do that.”