John wrote:

Many receptacles or switches have side screws that slightly protrude
outwards, especially after a wire has been screwed on. If you put two such
devices in a junction box, one device's hot could potentially touches the
adjacent one's neutral, touches a bare ground wire, or touches the metal
junction box.

What is the proper way to prevent this from happening?



Hi,
I never saw it happen. If craftmanship is shoddy it may happen tho.
When everything is tight and properlly installed the chance of internal
short like that is very remote. Also there is plastic boxes nowadays as
well.