This Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in Williams v. Mitchell County Electric Membership Corp. , 255 Ga. App. 668 566 SE2d 356 2002, to determine whether the High-Voltage Safety Act, OCGA § 46-3-30 et seq., bars the plaintiffs’ recovery in this case. Finding that it does, we affirm. Donald Williams, a farmer, was electrocuted in a cotton field when a sagging power line became entangled with his cotton picker. Williams exited the picker, reached up to examine the line, and was electrocuted. The line was part of a power line maintained by Mitchell County Electric Membership Corporation “Mitchell”. Williams’s widow and the co-administrator of his estate “Williams” brought wrongful death actions, claiming that Mitchell failed to exercise ordinary care in the construction and maintenance of the line. The actions were consolidated. Mitchell raised the defenses of assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and failure to give notice of the work being done as required by the High-Voltage Safety Act “HVSA”.1 See OCGA § 46-3-30 et seq. The jury found that Mitchell’s negligence proximately caused the death, and awarded damages. The trial court entered judgment notwithstanding the verdict, holding that the decedent assumed a known risk, and that the failure to provide the notice required by the HVSA insulated Mitchell from liability. See OCGA § 46-3-39. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court on the issue of assumption of risk, but affirmed it regarding the issue of the operation of the HVSA. See Williams , supra.
1. Williams argues that the HVSA historically has not been interpreted to foreclose recovery for injuries such as those sustained, unless the power lines at issue were properly maintained and located, as this Court held in Malvarez v. Georgia Power Co. , 250 Ga. 568, 569 300 SE2d 145 1983. However, the Malvarez opinion relied upon the language of then-OCGA § 46-3-38, which read: “Nothing in this part shall be construed or applied so as to limit or reduce the duty or degree of care applicable to owners or operators of high-voltage lines with respect to damage or loss to person or property.” In 1992, the General Assembly enacted Ga. L. 1992, pp. 2141 et seq., which, as the Court of Appeals noted in its opinion, “radically changed the liability of power companies for negligent erection or maintenance of high-voltage lines.” Williams , supra at 673 2.
