Court Opinion

ID: 9547209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:43:45.941005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:28.377346
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Vice Chief Justice
(dissenting) .
I must respectfully dissent to the opinion promulgated by a majority of my associates in this case.
As I read the opinion, the verdict and judgment for plaintiff are reversed because (1) the evidence was insufficient to show that the statements admittedly made by officials of Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. were the proximate cause of plaintiff’s damages; and (2) there was insufficient proof as to the amount of plaintiff’s damages.
On the question of proximate cause, it is well settled that the trier of the fact may take notice of matters of common knowledge. Board of Education of Ind. Sch. Dist. No. 20 v. Adams, Okl., 465 P.2d 464. The highly explosive and flammable nature of natural gas, and the fact that this is a matter of common knowledge, cannot be denied. For this reason, in my view the members of the jury were justified in concluding that the statements of a high official of a well known public utility company, made at the public meeting, questioning the safety of plaintiff’s transmission and distribution system, caused or contributed to the causing of the damages plaintiff suffered.
As to (2) above, relating to proof of damages consisting of the loss of business and future business, plaintiff introduced the testimony of an expert witness from a firm called Market Analysis Group who had made a survey and study of the area, and who testified as to the projected growth of the area for the next five years. From his testimony as to the number of residences to be expected in the area, plaintiff applied figures representing the estimated income per gas meter to arrive at a conclusion, in dollars, as to the amount of plaintiff’s damages. In Bishop-Babcock-Becker Co. v. Estes Drug Co., 63 Okl. 117, 163 P. 276, a case involving damages for loss of anticipated profits, this Court said “It being apparent that some loss was suffered, it is then entirely proper to let the jury determine what the loss probably was from the best evidence the nature of the case [affords]”. In my view the testimony of plaintiff’s expert witness as to the loss of business and future business, taken in connection with the rule quoted in this paragraph, was a sufficient basis for the damages awarded by the jury in this case. As a matter of fact, the testimony mentioned would have supported a much larger award of damages than the one made in this case, and without regard either to loss of customers he formerly had or from plaintiff’s alleged damages resulting from loss of financing.
For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that HODGES, SIMMS and DOOLIN, JJ., concur in the views herein expressed.