Court Opinion

ID: 9638316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:40:27.342511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:05.526526
License: Public Domain

*573PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
Judge Murrah’s opinion has my full concurrence, but it is my view that the judgment below should be affirmed for an additional reason. Appellants’ witnesses testified that if the joints in pipes of the original system installed in the Franklin home for natural gas were sealed with a compound of white lead and an organic oil, the butane would dissolve the organic oil and cause the joints to leak. Appellants’ expert witness DeBarr testified that butane would not dissolve a mineral oil in a joint sealing compound, and testified to a satisfactory personal experience with gi\s joints sealed with a compound containing mineral oil. There was no evidence to the contrary. Appellants’ witness Porter testified that he chipped off a small particle of the joint sealing compound on the outside of a joint and expressed the opinion that the compound consisted of white lead and oil. Of course, the oil in the compound which he removed from the outside of the joint would have long since disappeared. Moreover, he did not testify as to the character of the oil in the compound. For anything that appears in the evidence, it may as well have been a nonsoluble mineral oil as a soluble organic oil. Hence, the evidence wholly failed to establish negligence on the part of Skelly Oil Company.