Court Opinion

ID: 9447286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:30:50.172818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:19.881330
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent as to the holding of the Court:
“We are persuaded by both precedent and principle that the owner or occupier of particular property has a duty to warn the employees of an independent contractor who has undertaken to do work on the property, of dangers that are hidden on or inhere in that property, and that this duty is discharged if those in charge of the work for the independent contractor are given warning or have knowledge of the danger.”
This includes, of course, the reversal and rendition flowing from the adoption of this decisive rule of law. I concur in the Court’s discussion of the nature of the duties of an occupier leading to the conclusion that Gulf owed a duty to Bivins. I concur also as to the other action taken and the supporting reasons so persuasively advanced by the Court.
As to the limited, but decisive, issue on which we differ, the Court quite properly characterized the “decisive question” to be whether “the duty of Gulf to [warn] Bivins” was “discharged by the warning given to White and his job foreman?”
It is because the rule announced is stated in such positive and precise and conclusive terms that I feel compelled to register my disagreement. It transcends this case and is and will be — so long as it stands — a formidable lessening of the duty of an occupier to exercise reasonable care to make the premises safe for employees of independent contractors.
At the outset it bears emphasis that the rule now formulated for the first *762time eliminates the necessity for' a warning altogether. The rule does not re-’ quire a warning by the occupier to the independent contractor. Under it -the. exoneration of the occupier from liability is not conditioned upon proving that warning was given to the independent-contractor.. As stated, the rule does, of course, establish that such warning is an insulation. But as expressed in the rule the non-liability is automatic not because (a) warning was given to the independent contractor, or (b) the hazard was known to the injured employee. Rather it is automatic if “those in charge of the work for the independent contractor * * * have knowledge of the danger.”
The occupier is thus automatically excused in advance from the necessity of considering the nature of the hazard, the unusual or spectacular capacity of the agency to cause extraordinary harm, the likelihood that employees will not know of the hazard, or the likelihood that a suitable warning will be passed on by the “knowing” independent contractor to employees ignorant of this knowledge. If-it turns out that the independent contractor had knowledge, the occupier is home free notwithstanding the circumstances might have shown extreme danger to innocent workmen with no general likelihood that the employer-independent contractor would know of such hazards. Considering that tort law is a judge-made sanction to a developing public policy to protect persons from harm, one can hardly regard a rule as sound if its application depends on fortuitous chance not related to the principle of ordinary prudence.
This and other aspects of the application of the rule to be discussed later cause me to wonder how it is that, as just another Texas court, Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 1938, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188; Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 1945, 326 U.S. 99, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 89 L.Ed. 2079, we arrive at this decision.
Where Erie leads, there must we, of course, follow. What are the markers employed here? The comment in Baylor Law Reviewa adds little. With extreme caution it suggests the possible rule, but recognizes that it is not free from doubt. And for its basis, it cites the cases discussed by the Court’s opinion.b The Reinle case, is of course, diametrically opposed to the conclusion we reach. The basis for rejecting Reinle is that Nance, note b supra, points in the other direction. We must, of course, regard intermediate appellate courts and as we make our Erie way, what they say we must apply with equal fidelity unless it seems quite positive that the highest state court will reject it.c
In this situation I do not think we have any such evidence that Nance overrules the past. First, the Reinle case is still very much alive. As recently as 1950 in Smith v. Henger, 1950, 148 Tex. 456, 226 S.W.2d 425, 431, 20 A.L.R.2d 853, it was cited by the Supreme Court of Texas in a context of the duty of an occupier to employees of independent contractors. Second, Nance had a whole series of grounds for holding the alleged vicarious occupier not liable as a matter of law. The first was actual knowledge which the plaintiff Flowers had of the large overhead line strung on H towers. *763Second, by its very structure and the size of the wires strung on the towers, Flowers either knew or should have known of the obvious and open hazard of the drilling rig coming into contact with one of the wires. This invoked the principle elucidated in McKee v. Patterson, note b supra. Third, the defendant sued as the alleged vicarious occupier was not one in fact since the defendant Geophysical Company was in no sense responsible for, or had anything to do with the high power electric line strung and maintained by the utility company. Thrown in as a fourth reason was the asserted rule that the notice to, or knowledge of, the independent contractor insulated the occupier from further concern, responsibility or liability.
The notation of the Supreme Court “Refused N. R. E.” (no reversible error) in refusing to grant a writ of error and review Nance indicates that Supreme Court action was confined merely to an approval of the result, not an approval of the reasons or the Court’s opinion as would be the case with a writ denied “Refused.” d Hence the Supreme Court could have approved the result on any number of the reasons advanced for the decision.
As a technical Erie situation, I think that we are not free — whatever our own convictions — to reach this decision. If, as the Court seems to assume from its extended treatment of non-Texas cases, the decision is to be reached after being “persuaded by both precedent and principle” the result is, to me, even more unsound.
“In all cases where the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals is a correct one and where the principles of law declared in the opinion of the court are correctly determined, the Supremo Court will refuse the application with the docket notation ‘Refused’. In all cases where the Supreme Court is not satisfied that the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals in all respects has correctly declared the law, but is of the opinion that the application presents no error which requires reversal, the Court will deny the application. with the notation ‘Refused. No Reversible Error.’ * * See “Notations on Applications for Writs of Error” by Gordon Simpson, Associate Justice Texas Supreme Court, 1945-1949, 12 Texas Bar J. 547 at 574-575 (1949): Simpson, “Problems of Precedent Affecting Court of Civil Appeals Opinions,” 4 Southwestern L.J. 398, 402-403.
It warrants repeating that the rule stated with this articulate precision excludes altogether any inquiry into due care on the part of the occupier. The rule is simple and positive and absolute: if the occupier gives notice of a hazard to the independent contractor, that is all that is required. Under this rule, stated now with awesome finality for all time to come, it does not matter what the kind or type of hazard it is. It does not matter how grave may be the consequences of injury. It does not matter whether in the light of either of these two factors, a prudent occupier would not trust to the independent contractor the essential relaying of the warning to its employees.
A moment’s reflection is convincing, at least to me, that such an absolute rule cannot be sound. The industrial scientific world now stands on the threshold of a new and rapidly developing era of nuclear energy. Power of these still unexplored forces is scarcely known. But as with each mechanical development of the industrial revolution, it is known that these modern miracles bring in their train hazards and risks of parallel proportion. Law, of course, cannot divorce itself from these influences, and if it sought to do so, it would no longer be law — certainly not living law. The internal combustion engine did more than merely silence the pipes of Pan.e It and the competitive sources of steam, electric and hydraulic power, the irrepressi*764ble search for efficient fuels with which to meet the insatiable demands of this complex, the production of industrial commodities for consumption or use in further manufacturing, are some of the principal factors bringing into being the modern concept of inherently dangerous goods. The essence of it is that in view of the extraordinary capacity for severe harm, the superior knowledge of those close to the operation, the likelihood that persons exposed to harm will be ignorant of the risks, responsibility is put on one who introduces the thing into the channels of business, and due care is measured against the potential consequences. Indeed, it is just such factors which leads this Court to recognize that since “the evidence * * * would support the findings * * * that the premises contained an inherent, concealed or latent danger” unknown to the plaintiff Bivins, “there arose a duty of Gulf to warn” him.
It takes no special education to remind all of the destructive capacity of nuclear energy when loosed on such a mission. But the peaceful uses of the atom are, or may be, fraught with risks equally portentous.f From the handling of fissionable materials arises an acute apprehension of the existence and as yet unknown consequence of radiation. The fear is not limited to likelihood of immediate harm to those within the operational zone of danger. Its' impact may be imperceptible and slow in coming. And there is great concern that it ends with the person initially exposed.
It is true, of course, that Bivins was not hurt by these modern scientific miracles. But these factors are relevant in testing a rule stated with an awesome absolutism that warning by the occupier to the independent contractor is, as a matter of law, always and everywhere a complete insulation from liability for harm done to an innocent employee.
One can hardly believe that when putting fissionable materials into the channels of trade, a manufacturer or a distributor (or an occupier who contracts with an independent contractor for its use) can content himself as a matter of law with a notice or warning to his immediate customer. When the consequences for harm are so devastatingly spectacular, both as to those living and perhaps those not yet even conceived, will a routine letter warning be the final measure of operational and legal liability? Must not the law reckon with the facts in a particular case to ascertain, whether with the ominous threat of such destruction, a prudent person would rest, content on the assumption — or hope— that all in the successive chain would be adequately warned? Would not this be measured, in part at least, by whether the one to whom the “warning” is given has a really adequate understanding of the forces at work, the unique circumstances which make danger more, not less, likely, and the steps to be taken at each successive level if things go wrong ?
What I am trying to say is simply this. There are three possible rules. The first was that impliedly followed by the trial court which seems to ignore altogether the fact or significance of a warning by the occupier to the independent contractor. The second, is the rule announced by the majority which makes such a warning always and everywhere an automatic bar as a matter of law. The third, and middle ground, is the one I advance —whether as a fact in each particular case a prudent occupier in the position of the defendant would reasonably have concluded that the particular warning to the independent contractor would in all likelihood be brought home sufficiently to employees who might otherwise be ignorant of the danger.
This is, I submit, the very essence of § 343 of the Restatement of Torts so *765often embraced by Texas courts and repeated by the majority at some length. The occupier has a liability if he “(a) knows, or * * * could discover * * ” -¿he condition which he should realize involves “an unreasonable risk” to employees of independent contractors and he “(b) has [1] no reason to believe that they [2] will discover the condition or [3] realize the risk involved therein * * * ” g
This necessarily measures responsibility initially from the defendant-occupier’s point of view. That is what this Court spelledh out in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Wright, 5 Cir., 1956, 236 F.2d 46, 52. There this Court held that in view of the widespread knowledge at this late date of the known presence and dangers of hydrogen sulfide gas in the West Texas oil fields, a prudent occupier could not reasonably have expected that its independent contractor or the employees thereof would be ignorant either of the presence of the gas or its toxic effects. But it was there measured against the facts of that case. So much so was it that we sounded the caveat that on remand ultimate decision would depend upon the facts of the new trial there ordered.
Here the Court announces a rule which is both internally inconsistent and in conflict with the traditional, and here Texas, approach. As to Restatement § 343(a), the Court recognizes that it was a jury issue whether the iron sulfide gas was present and was a danger of which Bivins was ignorant. In other words, this was tested by the facts. But it then abandons the factual inquiry for jury resolution as to the same kind of issues presented in § 343(b). In the very nature of things, is not the question whether the occupier “[1] has no reason to believe” one of fact ? By the same token, is not an inquiry whether the employees “[2] will discover the condition” an obvious one of fact, not law? Is it not even more so as to the crucial one whether the employees will “[3] realize the risk involved therein” ?
It is entirely possible that on the record of a particular case reasonable minds could accept only the conclusion that a prudent occupier, having given notice of the peculiar hazard, would not have reason to believe that the employees would be ignorant of the condition or its hazards. In that situation a directed' verdict would be compelled. But ordinarily it will not be, as the Court now announces, a decision as a matter of law. What a prudent occupier “has reason to believe” depends on the total setting. This includes the nature or kind of dangerous condition, the kind or type of hazard presented, and a balancing of the possible capacity for harm of an extraordinary nature against the likelihood of the independent contractor effectively relaying the warning to his employees. This depends on facts. And where facts permit conflicting inferences, it is for the trier of fact, not the judge, to declare the result.
The Court, listing precedents for the rule announced, ignores altogether the cases to the contrary. Both the Ninth and Second Circuits reject this rule that notice to the independent contractor is either notice to the employee or cuts off his rights. Sullivan v. Shell Oil, 9 Cir., 1956, 234 F.2d 733; Anderson v. Lorent*766zen, 2 Cir., 1947, 160 F.2d 173. The Sullivan case from the Ninth Circuit is particularly persuasive since as that opinion reflects, Texas and California concepts are parallel on the open and obvious danger and voluntary assumption of risk principles.
My concern about the decision of the Court here as a precedent arises because the majority states this rule in such precise, positive, unyielding and absolute terms. What this may lead to is demonstrated by the case on which the majority places such great reliance. Storm v. New York Telephone Company, 270 N.Y. 103, 200 N.E. 659. There the defendant telephone company owned and maintained a line of poles. The utility company had, as lessee, fixed its crossarms and strung its wires on these poles. The entire line was being abandoned because the poles were rotten and deteriorated. The plaintiff, an employee of the utility company, was injured while engaged in removing the utility crossarms from one of the last remaining defective poles. To dismantle fittings from poles which were being abandoned because they were rotten and deteriorated is a far cry from our case which the majority properly characterizes as one imposing “liability for a concealed or latent condition of danger not incident to the work to be done.”
As Storm proves, big oaks from little acorns grow. Reasons given for a correct disposition of Storm are now the foundation for application of a like sounding rule to a new and entirely different situation.
The rule of prudence applying to the occupier to give rise to the duty should apply as well in the determination of the fulfillment (i. e„ discharge) of the duty. That is a question of legal-fact, not a deliverance of law. I therefore dissent.
Rehearing denied: JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

. Comment, The Duty to Furnish a Safe Place to Work to the Independent-Contractor and His Servants, 11 Baylor L. Rev. 170 (1959).

. Robert E. McKee, General Contractor v. Patterson, 1954, 153 Tex. 517, 271 S.W.2d 391; Nance Exploration Co. v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n, Tex.Civ.App. 1957, 305 S.W.2d 621 (error ref’d N.R.E.); Galveston-Houston Electric Ry. Co. v. Reinle, Tex.Civ.App.1924, 264 S.W. 783. The author does not cite the previous and authoritative. ruling by the Supreme Court on' certified questions in Reinle. Galveston-Houston Electric Ry. Co. v. Reinle, 1924, 113 Tex. 456, 258 S.W. 803. The Court’s reference and quotation is to the Supreme Court’s opinion,

. West v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 1940, 311 U.S. 223, 61 S.Ct. 179, 85 L.Ed. 139; Six Companies of California v. Joint Highway District, 1940, 311 U.S. 180, 61 S.Ct. 186, 85 L.Ed. 114; Stoner v. New York Life Ins. Co., 1940, 311 U.S. 464, 61 S.Ct. 336, 85 L.Ed. 284; Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field, 1940, 311 U.S. 169, 61 S.Ct. 176, 85 L.Ed. 109.

. Rule 483. Tex.R.Civ.Proc.:

. Lord Simonds, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, Address to the American Bar Association, 39 ABAJ 1062, 1316 (1953),“* * * [T]here are many who sigh for a more Arcadian simplicity of life. But in Arcadia, the sound of the internal combustion engine had not silenced the pipes of I’an; it is vain to seek pastoral ease in the hearts of great industrial cities.”

. See “The Feasibility of an Atomic Energy Compact for the Southern States,” The Southwestern Legal Foundation, Dallas, Sept., 1958, a special research project in response to the request of the Southern Governors Conference; Giller, “Insurance Torts and the Atom,” 26 Ins.Counsel J. 17 (Jan. 1959); McNeal “What and When of Atomic Liability,"'' 26 Ins.Counsel J. 21 (Jan. 1959).

. Brackets inserted for ease in reference.

. There we said: “This measures it upon the objective standard of what the defendant could reasonably expect others to know. The duty is ‘* * * to warn such persons of the existence of dangers which could not reasonably be expected to be apparent or obvious * * *, Restatement, Torts, § 348’, Smith v. Henger, supra at 226 S.W.2d 425, 431.” To this was appended footnote 25 which stated: “Justice Calvert, McKee v. Patterson, supra, refers to Dean Keeton’s Article 100 Pa.Law Review 629-648.”