Court Opinion

ID: 9772773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:29:47.613643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:48.420652
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing or for Transfer to the Court En Banc
PER CURIAM.
Defendant says we have misconstrued the facts in indicating the fan switch and the limit switch were operated or activated by the same control. Defendant says that while their controls were housed in the same metal cover and were both activated by the heat in the plenum chamber (called the furnace bonnet in the opinion), they operated separately; and defendant claims “that fact makes it impossible for any defective condition of the thermostat to interfere with the operation of the limit control, and likewise would preclude a defective condition in either the fan or limit switch from affecting the other.”
Defendant’s witness Eoff called this “a double switch” and “a limit and fan switch combination”. He also said: “The wire goes through here and up to these two junctions here, one is your fan switch and one is your limit switch. * * * This spring will expand and contract with heat and cold. This is an on and off expansion and contraction here which operates the switches in front. * * * On this side you have the limit control which is calibrated from a hundred to two hundred degrees; * * * (It was set to turn off the gas at 170 degrees temperature in the bonnet.) * * * Now, on this side we have a fan control * * * set for 140 degrees on and 110 degrees off * * * when the bonnet temperature would reach 140 degrees the fan would automatically come to its cycle and the contact would close which would put your fan on and move the warm air out of the plenum or bonnet of the furnace. Then, after it reached and cooled down to 110 degrees this here would actuate the switch again and close the circuit or open the circuit here which would stop the fan.” Whatever this testimony means, when considered most favorably to plaintiff’s contentions, it appears that, although the switches may have operated separately, they were both operated by the heat in the bonnet from expansion or contraction of the bi-metal coil spring. If the fan operated it would never get hot enough in the bonnet to operate the limit switch, but if the fan did not operate and the limit switch also failed and did not turn off the gas, then according to plaintiff’s evidence it would get hot enough to melt the aluminum pipes, which would allow gas to escape and start a gas fire. These pipes did melt and defendant concedes, in its suggestions, that “there is no dispute that a gas fire occurred within the shell of the furnace,” but claims it was started from a fire outside.
We adhere to the view expressed in the opinion that there was substantial circumstantial evidence from which the jury could find that all controls failed. Other matters discussed in the motion constitute a reargument of contentions made in the briefs which we have ruled in the opinion.
The motion for rehearing or to transfer to Banc is overruled.