Court Opinion

ID: 9630151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:02:39.595705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:32.410093
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance. This is clearly an orthodox case where the sole cause of the injury was the negligence of the independent contractor (plaintiff’s employer) and it does not fall within any of the situations in which an owner may be liable for injury to the employee of his independent contractor. Under the contract between defendant and Owens (plaintiff’s employer) the latter was to remove the easing from defendant’s oil well which was to be abandoned. Defendant had no right to and did not exercise any control over the performance by Owens of the contract; it did not own or have any control over the equipment to be used on the job, that equipment being owned and furnished by Owens, while defendant owned the oil well and premises on which it was located; the injury was not caused by any ebndition of the well or the premises, it being caused solely by the equipment owned and furnished by Owens; the injury was as much removed from defendant’s sphere of responsibility as it would have been had the injury occurred to one of Owens’ truck drivers because of a defective truck furnished by Owens while he was hauling the equipment to the job site. There is no question of any nondelegable duty as the factors for the application of that rule are not present.