A residential home in West Virginia lost power during a snow storm when a tree fell onto an electrical line. At the time of the outage, the homeowner notified the power company of the details of the incident. Shortly thereafter, the power company repaired the downed wire. When the tree fell, the wires were pulled loose inside of the home’s outside electrical meter such that wire came into contact with the conduit. This energized the conduit and ultimately ignited the vinyl siding of the insured’s home. Stutman Law’s expert retained several electrical wires in the area of the meter base, a section of aluminum siding which showed evidence of electrical arcing and the meter base itself.
Since the homeowner reported the downed wire before power was restored to the home, the utility company should have known that restoring electrical power to the home before checking on the downed wire was dangerous, and Stutman Law’s attorneys proved their actions were negligent and directly led to this fire loss. A significant six-figure recovery was obtained from the utility company.