Case Title: Roehrman v. DS & O. Rural Electric Cooperative Ass'n

Citation: 174 Kan. 498, 256 P.2d 872

Docket Number: 38,936, 38,937

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1953-05-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
174 Kan. 498 (1953)
256 P.2d 872
ARNOLD F. ROEHRMAN, Appellee and Cross-Appellant,
v.
THE D.S. & O. RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, INC., and THE KANSAS POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellants and Cross-Appellees.
Nos. 38,936, 38,937

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 9, 1953.
N.E. Snyder, of Kansas City, argued the cause, and Edwin P. Morrison, Robert L. Hecker, Henry W. Buck, Wm. B. Cozad, and Randolph P. Rogers, Jr., all of Kansas City, Missouri, were with him on the briefs for the appellant and cross-appellee, The D.S. & O. Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Inc.
*499 Robert E. Russell, of Topeka, argued the cause, and M.F. Cosgrove, Balfour S. Jeffrey, and Clayton E. Kline, all of Topeka, were with him on the briefs for the appellant and cross-appellee, The Kansas Power and Light Company.
Leonard O. Thomas, of Kansas City, argued the cause, and Arthur J. Stanley, Arthur J. Stanley, Jr., J.E. Schroeder, and Lee E. Weeks, all of Kansas City, were with him on the briefs for the appellee and cross-appellant.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
PARKER, J.:
This was an action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff as the result of having come in contact with a high tension line used for the transmission of electricity. The defendants appeal from the trial court's action in overruling separate demurrers to the plaintiff's amended petition. Upon reaching this court each appeal was given a distinct number. However, that fact may be disregarded as the issues involved are common to all parties and the cases have since been consolidated. The cross-appeal is from orders sustaining identical motions to strike one paragraph from the amended petition.
The amended petition serves a dual purpose in that it discloses the factual picture existing at the time of the accident in question as well as the alleged omissions and defects on which the defendants rely as grounds for sustaining their single assignment of error to the effect the trial court erred in overruling their separate demurrers to the challenged pleading which, omitting its formal averments, its allegations relating to the extent of the injuries sustained, and its prayer, reads:
Defendants filed separate but identical motions to strike paragraph 8 from the foregoing pleading and like motions to make certain allegations thereof more definite and certain. The last mentioned motion was overruled and the first sustained. Thereafter defendant, The Kansas Power and Light Company, demurred to the amended petition solely upon the ground it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The defendant, D.S. & O. *503 Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Inc., demurred thereto for the same reason and in addition specified it was doing so particularly because such pleading (a) contained no allegation of any breach of any duty owing from it to the plaintiff; (b) showed plaintiff's negligence was the cause of or contributed to any injuries he had received, and (c) disclosed that its negligence, if any, was not the proximate cause of such injuries. When these demurrers were overruled defendants perfected the appeals to which we have heretofore referred. Subsequently plaintiff gave notice of his cross-appeal.
Appellants argue that their motions to make definite and certain, directed against the amended petition to which we shall hereafter refer as the petition, having been successfully resisted, make that pleading subject to strict construction and cite Kinderknecht v. Hensley, 160 Kan. 637, 164 P.2d 105; Donie v. Associated Co., Inc., 173 Kan. 753, 252 P.2d 609, in support of their position. It may be conceded, that when existing conditions warrant, the authorities cited as sustaining this position so hold. The trouble from their standpoint is that a motion to make a petition more definite and certain does not lie when the pleading attacked is sufficiently definite and certain to make the nature of the charge apparent and that a petition which fairly apprises the defendant of what the plaintiff's claim is to be is not subject to a motion to make more definite and certain. When that is the situation, where such a motion is properly resisted and overruled, the decisions on which appellants rely have no application and the attacked pleading is subject to liberal construction notwithstanding. (See Morris v. Dines Mining Co., 174 Kan. 216, 256 P.2d 129, and decisions there cited.)
Nothing would be gained by taking up the two motions and discussing seriatim the different paragraphs thereof. It suffices to say a careful examination of those paragraphs discloses that some of them sought to have the appellee set out the details making up the ultimate facts alleged while others related to matters of defense which appellants could have pleaded by way of answer without prejudice to their rights. When the petition is surveyed in its entirety we have little difficulty in concluding that its allegations advised appellants fully of appellee's claim and the relief sought. The result, applying the rule of the decisions to which we have last referred, is that that pleading was not vulnerable to the motions to make more definite and certain and that its allegations are still subject *504 to liberal construction. This, under the rule so well established as to scarcely require citation of the authorities supporting it (see West's Kansas Digest, Pleading, §§ 34[1], 214[2], and Hatcher's Kansas Digest [Rev. Ed.], Pleading, §§ 35, 155), means that in determining whether the challenged pleading states a cause of action all of its well pleaded allegations must be accepted as true and given the benefit of all favorable inferences.
Turning again to the petition, which has been set forth at length and for that reason will not be unduly labored, it may be said that after examining its allegations in the light of the rule to which we have just referred we have become convinced it must be construed as stating that at 4 a.m. on August 20, 1949, while engaged in the performance of his duties as a highway maintenance man, at a place where he was rightfully entitled to be, the plaintiff, who had been advised the accident causing the conditions described in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of the petition had occurred some four hours prior thereto, came in contact with a broken high voltage transmission line and sustained injuries which were caused by the defendants' carelessness and negligence with respect to the particular matters set forth in subsections (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) of paragraph 9 of the petition. So construed, and accepting all those allegations as true for purposes of ruling on the demurrers, we are unwilling to say the petition shows upon its face appellee was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, in that he did not exercise ordinary care for his own protection and safety under the conditions and circumstances therein set forth, as each of the appellants contend. That, in our opinion, when the allegations of the pleading are considered in their entirety is a question on which the minds of reasonable men might differ and therefore is one which, if established by the degree of proof required, should be submitted for decision to a jury under proper instructions as to the law applicable to the rights of the parties under the issues, facts and circumstances raised and disclosed by pleadings and evidence.
The appellant, The Kansas Power and Light Company, makes no further contention respecting the propriety of the trial court's ruling on its demurrer. However, the appellant, Rural Co-operative Association, raises two additional questions to which we shall now give our attention. The first of these is that the petition fails to disclose it breached any duty to appellee and hence the petition fails to state a cause of action. We do not agree. The clear and unequivocal import of some of the allegations, to which we have heretofore *505 referred, is that such appellant, in the exercise of the degree of care required of it in the maintaining of its electrical transmission lines, failed to maintain proper fuses or reclosers which would have shut off the flow of electricity, also that it failed to inspect or maintain such fuses or reclosers as had theretofore been installed on the transmission lines in a careful and prudent manner, and that if it had done so appellee would not have sustained his injuries. Other allegations of the pleading are to the effect that in the exercise of the highest degree of care such appellant would have known of the existence of the short in the line within a few minutes and should, in the exercise of ordinary and reasonable care, have either repaired the break or shut off the electricity in the line long before appellee was injured by coming in contact therewith. Under such allegations, which must be conceded as true for present purposes, it cannot be successfully argued that the petition charges no breach of duty against the Co-operative Association.
Next the Co-operative Association argues the petition shows no negligence on its part which was the proximate cause of any of the injuries sustained by appellee. The gist of this argument is bottomed upon the premise that the breaking of the pole, resulting in the breaking in the line, was the proximate cause of the injuries sustained. Again we must disagree. The mere fact that the act of another was responsible for the break in the line did not relieve such appellant from the acts of negligence charged against it in the petition if established as alleged. The books are full of cases holding that there may be more than one proximate or legal cause of an injury. See, e.g., Rowell v. City of Wichita, 162 Kan. 294, 302, 303, 176 P.2d 590, and cases there cited.
In reaching the conclusions just announced we have not attempted, nor do we deem it necessary, to discuss the decisions dealing with, or write a thesis on, the subject of the rights, duties and liabilities of power companies engaged in the transmission of electricity. Whether appellee can prove the allegations of his petition, appellants can assert and establish defenses with respect thereto, or what the legal rights and liabilities of the parties on joinder of issues may be under the evidence adduced on a trial of those issues, are matters with which we are not presently concerned. All that is required for purposes of this appeal is to hold, as we have concluded, that under the facts, conditions, and circumstances set forth in the petition the trial court did not err in overruling the demurrers to that pleading.
*506 One other question remains. In support of his cross-appeal appellee contends that paragraph 8 of the petition, which we have italicized for purposes of emphasis, was erroneously stricken by the trial court on grounds the allegations of such paragraph were repetitious, conjectural and speculative. We doubt such allegations were speculative or conjectural. However, in view of other allegations of the petition, they were repetitious but we have no doubt, that under those allegations, appellee can still offer evidence respecting the matters set forth in the stricken paragraph. Therefore, it cannot be said the trial court erred in sustaining the motion to strike such paragraph from the petition.
The judgment is affirmed.