Court Opinion

ID: 9626115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:02:53.00154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:21.754763
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent and think the language of the indemnity agreement, given in exchange for very valuable pipeline easements, covers a case like this.
I think the attempted examples which the main opinion poses about “but for” a person’s getting out of bed in the morning, “but for” the fig-leaf incident, etc., may be an indictment against getting out of bed *261in the morning or against running around-catching cold juggling apples, but they are not analogies, since they do not involve an indemnity agreement. I take it that any casualty insurance company, under a written agreement, and for a consideration, as was the case here, would indemnify me against injury whether I got out of bed or not. As to Eve’s activities I do not know whether such a company would offer coverage at any price, and it is highly conjectural that the indemnitor insurer would consider the “but for” test as a defense against its contractual liability.
The main opinion talks about the intention of the parties. El Paso solicited U. P., for the pipeline privileges, and signed a comprehensive indemnity agreement to secure those rights. It is inconceivable to me that for some $800 U. P. intended to take a gamble on a $340,000 claim, or a perpetual series of them, under the circumstances of 1 this case. In granting the easements, U. P. also permitted pipeline employees to cross their tracks on a road which was not a public highway, and it appears to me that : where such employees’ only access to their work the workmen’s compensation cases . holding that once an employee is headed for work on a road inside or outside the employer’s gate, with no other place to go except to his work, he is in the course of his employment, may be akin to this case, which seems to me factually to be little different.