Court Opinion

ID: 9540261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:14:08.540003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:47.588336
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Mote, J.
— I wish to dissent herein to the majority holding of this Court.
The only question presented by this appeal is the ruling of the trial court which sustained appellee’s demurrer addressed *417to appellant’s fourth amended second paragraph of complaint, hereinafter sometimes referred to as “complaint,” seeking to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by said appellant as the result of an explosion on June 21, 1961. It is made to appear that the original complaint was against Lehigh Portland Cement Co., Cherne Co., Inc., Fruin-Colnon Contracting Co., and The Mitchell Trucking Company. Appellant later added appellee as a defendant, and the action against all other parties at various times apparently was dismissed.
Said fourth amended second paragraph of complaint alleges in substance the following:
Appellee, an Indiana corporation, engaged in the supply and the sale of natural gas to the public, knew, or reasonably should have known it to be a highly inflammable and explosive substance with a tendency to escape, and plumbers and pipe fitters were employed by industrial contractors to connect gas appliances to gas lines supplying natural gas; in order to prepare such appliances for use it was necessary to bleed, or purge, the air from said pipes or lines until gas begins to flow through the same and said plumbers and pipe fitters rely on their sense of smell to detect appellee’s gas by its odor, when it begins to flow through and out of said pipes and lines into the air; in the exercise of due care in the sale of said gas products it was and is appellee’s custom, well established by long practice and community wide usage, to odorize said gas as a protection against its unnoticed escape into the air. It is further alleged that appellee knew, or reasonably should have known, that pipe fitters relied solely upon the odor in said gas to detect the same when flowing in the bleeding operation.
It is further alleged that on said date, Lehigh Portland Cement Company was the owner of a plant, including a building for manufacturing, east of Mitchell, Indiana, and a plumbing contractor, The Cherne Company, Inc., had been employed *418by the owner to install, and it already had installed, a certain gas line from appellee’s gas supply line to said building.
The appellee, according to the allegations, supplied gas for said Lehigh Portland Cement Company plant, including the building above referred to, and on the above mentioned date Emory Cooper and Lloyd Ramsey, pipe fitters and plumbers, employees of The Cherne Company, Inc., began to bleed said gas pipe for the purpose of connecting the same to a certain hot water heater and other appliances in said building; said Cooper and Ramsey live in the community where appellee sold its gas and had practiced their trade in said community for a number of years prior to said time, and they knew that appellee “heretofore had odorized its said gas and they knew the longstanding custom and practice of said defendant to odorize its gas, and said employees, relying on said longstanding custom and practice of said defendant to odorize said gas, began to bleed said gas pipes and lines that had heretofore been constructed until gas began to flow therefrom” ; that said bleeding of said gas lines was in said building of Lehigh Portland Cement Company, as aforesaid; that said gas flowed and escaped from said gas lines during said bleeding and escaped into said building undetected by said Emory Cooper and Lloyd Ramsey, for the reason that said gas was not odorized; that at said time and place after said gas had escaped and, being unnoticed, accumulated in said building, said gas suddenly and without warning violently exploded, causing said building to explode and fall apart with great force and violence.
“6.
That said defendant knew, or should have known by the exercise of ordinary care, that Lehigh Portlani Cement Co., its agents or contractors and their employees would necessarily have to bleed gas lines to use the defendant’s gas; and that they knew, or should have known by the exercise of ordinary care, that plumbers and pipefitters would rely upon the odor in the gas to determine when said pipes had been bled.
*4197.
That at the time and place of said explosion, which was at about the hour of 12:50 p.m., the plaintiff was standing on a board on a ladder rack which was on a truck directly adjacent to the north side of said building aforesaid, and plaintiff was engaged in soldering seams on the guttering of said building and facing south. That when said explosion occurred, parts of said building struck plaintiff and said explosion threw him through the air and upon the ground, inflicting upon him injuries, . .
Appellant further alleges that the explosion and his injuries were the direct and proximate result of negligence as set forth in Specifications (a) to (e), both inclusive. Such specifications include:
(a) Failure to odorize said gas.
(b) Failure adequately to odorize said gas so that the same could be detected at the site where bleeding of the pipe took place, such inadequate odorization being unknown to appellant but well known to defendant.
(c) Failure to notify Lehigh Portland Cement Company and The Cherne Company, Inc., and their employees, the said Emory Cooper and Lloyd Ramsey, that the gas delivered by appellee was not odorized.
(d) That appellee having known, or by the exercise of reasonable caution should have known, that plumbers and pipe fitters, including Cooper and Ramsey, solely relied upon the odor in said gas to detect the same, failed to warn or notify Lehigh Portland Cement Company or The Cherne Company, Inc., or its agents or employees, including Cooper and Ramsey, of its discontinuance of its custom and usage of odorizing said gas, and finally
(e) That appellee having known, or by the exercise of reasonable .caution should have known, that plumbers and pipe fitters in the community, including Cooper and Ramsey, relied solely upon the odor in the gas to detect the same, negligently failed to notify The Cherne Company, Inc., pipe fitters, in-*420eluding Cooper and Ramsey, on said date that said gas was not odorized.
The fourth amended second paragraph of complaint alleges injuries caused as a direct and proximate result of the above referred to negligence and certain alleged facts concerning his disability, loss of time, etc. However, for this purpose we regard it as unnecessary to make reference to such additional allegations.
Appellee filed motion to make said complaint more specific, which was finally overruled, and thereafter filed a demurrer accompanied by memorandum to said fourth amended second paragraph of complaint which, omitting the formal parts, reads as follows:
“The defendant, Indiana Gas & Water Co., Inc., demurs to the fourth amended second paragraph of complaint and for cause of demurrer alleges and says:
That the fourth amended second paragraph of complaint fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against this defendant.”
The memordandum accompanying the demurrer sets forth in significant essence that the said complaint fails to allege facts sufficient at law to show that appellee breached or violated a duty owing by it to appellant, which breached or violated duty to said appellant was the proximate cause of the explosion and resulting injuries; that said pleading shows on its face that the proximate cause of the accident and resulting injuries was the act and conduct of the employees of The Cherne Company, Inc., thus creating a legal intervening act; and that any act of negligence on the part of the appellee would become a remote cause, if indeed appellee was negligent in any manner.
The trial court sustained the demurrer and upon the refusal of appellant to plead over, a judgment was rendered against appellant and in favor of appellee, resulting in this appeal. The only error assigned therein is that the trial court erred in sustaining said demurrer.
*421Counsel for both parties have presented us with excellent briefs and pertinent oral arguments. Without extensive comment, I think we may assume that the within action is based upon allegations of negligence which would be sufficient to withstand demurrer, provided such acts of negligence were charged against the appellee by one to whom a duty is owed. After laying the groundwork of negligence on the part of appellee, appellant merely alleges that at the time of the ensuing explosion, when he was soldering seams in or on the eaves of the building involved, he was injured.
It will be noticed that the appellant has alleged no duty owing to him by the appellee.
We conclude that the rule enunciated in 21 I. L. E., pages 372, 373, Section 142, Chapter 6, under Negligence, appears to have strict application to the case at bar. It is said that:
“The complaint in an action for negligence must show the existence of a legal duty on the part of defendant to exercise care as to the person . . . injured at the time and place of the injury. So, it is insufficient to allege merely that defendant negligently performed or failed to perform certain acts whereby the injury was caused, without an allegation showing defendant’s duty in the matter.
“In order for the pleading to be sufficient, the duty of care on the part of defendant must be shown by an allegation of facts from which the duty follows as a matter of law. It is sufficient to state facts from which the duty so arises without showing the details, and if the facts stated show a legal duty of care, an express allegation of such duty is not necessary. A mere allegation of the existence of such duty, without a statement of the facts from which it arises, is insufficient as being a mere statement of a legal conclusion.” (Emphasis supplied.) See authorities thereunder cited.
A careful study and analysis of the complaint discloses no such allegations therein, either of facts or conclusions, which would impose any duty of appellee to appellant, and even though we were to regard the specifications of negligence alleged in the complaint sufficient to withstand demurrer, if *422a duty were alleged by appellee to appellant, in the absence of such allegation we have no authority to overrule the trial court or to hold that the complaint, considered in its entirety, in fact does allege or show such duty.
I would affirm the judgment.
Bierly, J., concurs.