in the course and scope of their employment, and during construction of the Westbank Expressway bridge over the Harvey Canal. The electrical shock killed Duncan and injured Natkowski.
One of the job duties of Duncan and Natkowski was to assist in moving a "spider basket" and scaffolding from one bridge pier to the next so the touch-up crew could complete work on the piers. The work called for attaching a spider basket to each end of a scaffold. Each spider basket was then attached to the top of the bridge by a cable and the workmen would raise and lower the device along each pier by use of an air-driven winch. Upon completion of each pier, the device was disconnected and each spider basket and the scaffold were walkedseparately to the next pier, approximately 200 feet away.
The accident occurred just after lunch. Duncan and another man were positioned on the bridge to carry the cable to the adjacent pier. At this stage of the construction the bridge railing was not completed, rather it consisted only of bare reinforcement rods which formed the shape of the railing. Four men, Earl Buras, Jr. (a carpenter foreman), Gerald Barette (painting crew foreman), Natkowski and Alvin Jones (a cement finishing crew foreman), carried the spider basket from one pier to the next. The six men were walking the length of the bridge when the cable contacted an uninsulated high power line running under and perpendicular to the bridge. The resulting shock killed Duncan and injured three of the four men