Opinion ID: 1923847
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: determination of liability between ntl and m & h

Text: In its brief, NTL asserts what it believes to be numerous errors by the trial court in its findings of fact and determination that NTL was 75% responsible for the damage. The issues of negligence, proximate cause and contributory negligence are questions of fact for the trier of fact. Moser v. Wilhelm, 300 N.W.2d 840, 842 (N.D. 1981). In Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co. v. Johnston's Fuel Liners, 122 N.W.2d 140 (N.D.1963), we reinstated a jury verdict finding both the gasoline carrier and the party who received the gasoline to be joint tortfeasors after the trial court entered judgment notwithstanding the verdict against the carrier alone. In that case, after the bulk station owner ordered the fuel, Johnston's Fuel Liners' driver and the owner's son worked together to unload the tanker. A coupling was missing and the son obtained the necessary piece and unlocked the valves and helped connect the hoses and pump. Neither driver nor son measured the receiving tank. After pumping operations began, the owner arrived and his son left. The owner questioned use of the gasoline-powered pump, but did not offer use of his own electric pump. Subsequently, the tank overflowed and the pump was shut off. To stop the engine on the pump, a metal strap was depressed to short out the spark plug. It appears that the resulting spark ignited the gasoline vapor and a fire resulted. As to the duty of the parties, we said: Both the defendant and the third-party defendant had a duty to exercise such care as reasonable men would have exercised in the handling of a commodity which was potentially dangerous if mishandled, so that non-negligent persons owning or using property on adjacent premises would not be damaged by the failure to use such care on the part of said defendants. 122 N.W.2d 145. In that case, the overriding factor was that the parties acted jointly in unloading the gasoline. In the present case, NTL's driver undertook to unload the fuel by himself as he had done other times even after he was warned that the capacity would be close. No employee of M & H assisted in the unloading process, nor were any of the employees asked by the driver to assist. The driver knew that the tank and measuring port were located elsewhere and assumed that the measuring port was lower than the fill pipe. Thus, if the tank were to overflow, it would do so at the measuring port and not at the fill pipe unless the measuring port cap was on securely and was leakproof. The cap, however, was either not on or else was defective as it was found lying beside the measuring port after the overflow. The stipulated facts are that there was room for 5,076 gallons of regular fuel in the regular storage tank, and that the driver loaded 4,700 gallons of regular gasoline into the trailer. If both of these facts had been true, there could not have been an overflow. The stipulated facts also are that the driver backed the rig up to unload the unleaded gasoline into another port. Therefore, the unleaded gasoline could not be a cause of the overflow of the regular storage tank. The stipulated facts do not contain any basis upon which we may attribute liability to either party for an error in measuring the capacity of the storage tank or the measuring of the load in the tanker. [1] It does appear that the fire could not have occurred had not both NTL and M & H been negligent. If M & H had properly placed the cap upon the measuring port and had the cap remained securely in place, the fuel would have overflowed at the fill pipe where the driver could have seen it and shut the flow off. The driver should have exercised care to prevent an overflow after being warned that the capacity would be close. He did hold back 500 gallons, but then, without any further precautions, he also simply dumped that into the receiving tank. He could have ascertained the location of the measuring port and measured it himself or he could have asked one of M & H's employees to do so, but he did not, even after the warning that it would be close. NTL refers us to Fritsch v. Atlantic Refining Co., 307 Pa. 71, 160 A. 699 (1932). Except for one important distinction, the facts of that case are remarkably similar to the facts of this case. In Fritsch, the driver was filling the station's tank which was located in the basement. The fill pipe was outside the building and there was a measuring port inside the building. The cap had been left off of the measuring port and the tank overflowed. In that case, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania determined that the driver was not negligent in filling the tank and had no duty to anticipate that someone from the station would negligently leave the cap off of the measuring port. The court referred to 45 Corpus Juris at 705 and said: One is not under a duty of anticipating negligence on the part of others, but, in the absence of anything which gives or should give notice to the contrary, a person is entitled to assumed and to act on the assumption, that others will exercise ordinary care for their own safety. 160 A. at 700-701. In this case, the driver had notice that the storage tank might not hold all of the gasoline. He knew the measuring port and tank were located elsewhere and assumed that they were lower than the fill pipe; he did not request assistance to measure the remaining capacity before he dumped the 500 gallons he had held back specifically to prevent an overflow. Even though we agree with NTL's contention that it was impossible for the driver to maintain a careful watch over both the fill pipe and the measuring port over the tank, we do not believe that he exercised the care that a reasonable man would have exercised in the handling of the potentially dangerous gasoline. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co. v. Johnston's Fuel Liners, supra, 122 N.W.2d at 145. It is also uncertain whether or not the cap on the measuring port was simply not replaced or was defective. In either case, M & H was negligent in using an inadequate cap or in failing to replace the cap. Such negligence would have been irrelevant had the tank not been overfilled by the NTL driver. We do not find that the driver's negligence was an intervening cause sufficient to relieve M & H of its negligence, as there is some basis for the contention that, had an adequate cap been securely placed upon the port, the gasoline would not have overflowed at the tank. Likewise, we do not believe that M & H's negligence was an intervening cause sufficient to relieve NTL of its negligence in overfilling the tank. (For a discussion of negligence, proximate cause and intervening causes, see Johnston's Fuel Liners, supra, 122 N.W.2d at 148; and Knorr v. K-Mart Corp., 300 N.W.2d 47, (N.D.1980).) We agree with the apportionment of negligence which the trial court assigned to each of the parties. The judgment assigning 75% responsibility to NTL and 25% to M & H is affirmed. VANDE WALLE, SAND and PAULSON, JJ., concur.