Court Opinion

ID: 9844609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:05:27.452839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:38.941497
License: Public Domain

SHINN, P. J.
I concur in the judgment: I agree that on the former appeal the court did not hold upon the facts found that Lupella was not acting within the scope of his employment. The trial court had found that Lupella’s act of filling the lighter “was not connected with the duties which said Lupella was then delegated to perform for defendant Ideal.” It was this finding, I suppose, that the court said would be inconsistent with a finding that Lupella was acting within the scope of his employment. In view of the court’s finding the judgment was clearly erroneous. I do not see that on the appeal the court decided anything else. There was an implication in the general reversal that the trial court could find that Lupella was acting within the scope of his employment.
I agree that the questions whether Lupella was acting within the scope of his employment and whether he was negligent should have been submitted to the jury. I do not agree that there was evidence that defendant was negligent with respect to the drum of paint thinner. Filling a lighter from a spigot with an automatic shut-off would have been as likely to cause a fire as filling it from the kind that was used. It was capable of being shut off and I cannot believe defendant had any reason to anticipate that someone would kick it and break it off or that any accident would happen of the general nature of the one that did happen because of the type of spigot that was on the drum or the way the thinner was being stored and used. There was no danger except in the use of the thinner by the workmen.
A petition for a rehearing was denied January 20, 1955, and respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 16, 1955.