Court Opinion

ID: 9851658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:17:05.997922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:11.025022
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
dissenting: The installation here complained of was made by the defendant in the Spring of 1950. The evidence discloses that one pump unit did not function properly the first day. The pump would run five or six minutes before it would start pumping gas. This indicated that air was getting in the gas line somewhere below the pump. It is evidence of faulty installation. It would seem that the defendant’s repairman should have been put on notice that this condition likely came from a leak in the gas line, and in the exercise of due care he should have sought out the leak and repaired it. Yet, this was not done. The plaintiff repeatedly notified the defendant — '“12 or 15 times or more” — that the pump was not working properly, and each time the defendant sent men out to work on the pump. These repairmen failed to locate and correct the trouble. Finally, the leak was located and repaired in February, 1952. Conceding that under the contract it was the duty of the plaintiff “to maintain the equipment,” even so, when the defendant undertook from time to time to correct the faulty installation as reported by the plaintiff, and sent men out to the plaintiff’s place to work on the pump, the defendant became chargeable with failure of these men to exercise due care in locating the leak. This assumption of responsibility on the part of the defendant dilutes the legal effect of the contract provision which required the plaintiff to maintain the equipment. It is elemental that the law imposes an obligation upon everyone who attempts to do anything, even gratuitously, for another, to exercise due care and skill in the performance of the undertaking, and for the nonperformance of such duty an action will lie. Nor may a duty voluntarily assumed be carelessly abandoned without incurring liability for injury resulting from the abandonment.
I am constrained -to the view that the evidence relied on by the plaintiff is sufficient to support the inference that the defendant was actionably negligent, both in respect to the original installation and for failure to exercise due care in discovering the leak after the plaintiff notified the defendant about the malfunctioning pump. It seems to me the plaintiff made out a prima facie case on each of these grounds, and this, without calling to his aid the principle of res ipsa loquitur. Therefore my vote is to reverse the judgment of nonsuit.