Opinion ID: 2263407
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Plaintiffs' Cross-Appeal Against Southern States

Text: On cross-appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the Superior Court erred by barring their expert, Alan Bullerdiek, from testifying that Southern States' failure to comply with the GAS Check program constituted a breach of an industry standard of care. This Court reviews a trial court's decision to admit or exclude expert testimony for abuse of discretion. [40] At trial, the plaintiffs offered into evidence the expert opinion of Mr. Bullerdiek, who was a lead investigator in gas products and gas controls for the Consumer Products Safety Commission. The trial court found that Mr. Bullerdiek was qualified to give an expert opinion on issues involving propane safety, but precluded Mr. Bullerdiek from testifying that the Gas Appliance System Check (GAS Check) program  a voluntary system developed by the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA)  constituted a standard of care in the gas supply industry. The GAS Check program recommends periodic inspections of residential propane gas services. The plaintiffs argued that Mr. Bullerdiek should be allowed to testify that GAS Check has been adopted as a standard of care in the gas supply industry, and that as a consequence, Southern States had a legal duty to inspect the Midcaps' gas system. After conducting a Daubert hearing, the Superior Court allowed the plaintiffs to introduce evidence about the GAS Check program, but determined that Mr. Bullerdiek could not testify that that program constituted the relevant standard of care in the gas supply industry. Mr. Bullerdiek's proffered opinion to that effect was found unreliable, because the GAS Check program was voluntary and there was no evidence that the propane gas industry generally followed the voluntary requirements of the GAS Check program. The standard of care required of defendants in tort actions is that of a reasonably prudent person. [41] The inquiry in all cases is what a reasonable person would have done under the circumstances  a determination that necessarily will depend on the particular facts of each case. [42] The custom or practice in a particular industry is probative of what conduct is reasonable under the circumstances. In the context of a natural gas company, this Court has previously held that: The defendant is liable for injuries from gas caused by its negligence, but is not an insurer. It is presumed to know the inherent danger presented by gas and is required to exercise a degree of care commensurate with the danger. It is bound to guard against any contingency, combination of circumstances, or accidents which a person of ordinary intelligence would have foreseen as probable to happen. The extent of its duty and the standard of care it must conform to are measured in terms of the foreseeability of injury from the situation created by it. Each case is to be decided in the light of its own facts, with due regard to the surrounding circumstances, and whether or not the subsequent act was normal and expectable. But negligence cannot be predicated upon a failure to anticipate extraordinary and unprecedented acts of others. [43] Here, the plaintiffs urge, the evidence showed that the GAS Check program was a safety procedure that was uniformly accepted and recommended in the gas supply industry, and that therefore, a reasonably prudent propane supplier would have complied with the GAS Check program and conducted periodic checks of the Midcaps' propane system. We conclude that the Superior Court correctly held that Mr. Bullerdiek's opinion that the GAS Check program constituted a standard of care was not admissible, because there was no evidence that that program was a standard adopted by the gas supply industry as a whole. GAS Check is designed to provide a limited inspection of certain components of a residential gas system, including its connected appliances. The information in the brief submitted by the amici curiae, Propane Education and Research Council (PERC), shows that GAS Check is a voluntary program that no state or federal agency has yet adopted as mandatory. [44] Moreover, and importantly, the Gas Check program does not specifically recommend when and under what conditions an inspection should be conducted. It is difficult to conclude, therefore, that the program constitutes a standard of care in the industry where the suppliers who use the program have implemented it voluntarily and in a variety of different ways. For example, some suppliers (including Southern States) conduct a check when a new customer is added to their service, or when a customer smells a propane odor. Other suppliers offer the inspection as an additional service that a customer may request, sometimes for an additional fee. Those facts also show that it is not clear how the argued-for standard could be defined. How often, for example, should periodic checks occur? The GAS Check program is not standardized. Rather, it is a recommended inspection procedure that suppliers are free to adopt  and modify  as needed. For that reason as well, neither Mr. Bullerdiek nor anyone else could reliably testify that the GAS Check program constitutes a gas supply industry standard. We conclude, therefore, that the Superior Court did not err in excluding his testimony on that issue. [45]