Arkansas Drilling Co. v. Gross
| Decision Date | 27 May 1929 |
| Docket Number | (No. 5.) |
| Citation | 17 S.W.2d 889 |
| Parties | ARKANSAS DRILLING CO. v. GROSS. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Ouachita County; W. A. Speer, Judge.
Action by Roy Gross against the Arkansas Drilling Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Buzbee, Pugh & Harrison, of Little Rock, and John M. Shackleford, of El Dorado, for appellant.
McRae & Tompkins, of Prescott, for appellee.
This suit was commenced in the Ouachita circuit court by the appellee, who alleged that while in the employ of the appellant he was injured by reason of appellant's negligence. There was a verdict and judgment in favor of the appellee for $5,000, from which an appeal has been duly prosecuted. The injury was alleged to have occurred on the 15th day of July, 1928, and the case was tried on December 7, 1928.
The appellant was engaged in drilling an oil well in Ouachita county and had a crew of men working under the direction of one Louis St. Vine, as driller or foreman. The appellee was a member of this crew. The floor of the derrick is about 24 feet square. The hole which the drillers are drilling is about the center of the derrick floor. A steel pipe called drill stem is used in drilling a well, and the drill stem consists of pipes about 20 feet long, which can be joined together. When two lengths of pipe are joined together it is called a double. When four lengths are connected it is referred to as a fourble. Sometimes a 4-inch pipe is used and sometimes a 2½. The pipe being used at the time of the injury to appellee was a 2½-inch pipe. This pipe is much more limber and sways much more than a four-inch pipe.
The only question with reference to negligence or liability of the appellant is whether the driller, in ordering the derrick men to push the drill stem forward before it was picked up by the line and the action of the derrick man in complying with this order was negligent. This is the only question of negligence submitted to the jury by the court, and is therefore the only question to be considered here. If pushing the drill stew forward before it was picked up by the line was negligence, the appellant is liable; if this is not negligence, the appellant is not liable. There is no question of contributory negligence or assumption of risk, and there is no dispute about the fact that appellee was injured.
Appellant contends that there is no evidence of negligence and that the court should have directed a verdict for the defendant. It is contended that other drillers adopted the same method used by appellant and that it was simply a question of judgment, and it is argued that no one is liable for an error in judgment. It contends that if there were two methods by which the work could have been done, and the appellant, in consequence of a mere error in judgment, adopted a method which resulted in the injury, that it is not liable. And it is also contended that the proof shows that the method of performing the work at the time of the injury was the method used by other drillers and that this was all that could be required of the appellant.
On the question of the manner in which the work was done at the time, the derrick man, Paul Martin, testified that he had been working in the oil fields since 1922; that the derrick was 112 feet high; that there is a double board in the derrick where the man stands to latch the elevators and unlatch them in taking two joints of pipe out or in the hole. The derrick man sometimes has to stand on the double board. He also testified that when you use 2½-inch pipe, the double board has a finger board on it. Where you use a 4-inch pipe, it does not, but is on the fourble board. It is necessary to use finger board when you use 2½-inch pipe because it is limber and the handling of it would be impracticable if you did not use the finger board. They were using 2½-inch pipe at the time.
When witness came on duty the day of the injury the double board had been knocked out of its place and pushed back about a foot and one half. Instead of putting it back in place they nailed it down where it was—about a foot and a half further back than it was when first put there. This made the finger board too short, and it became necessary to splice it. This witness, in obedience to the direction of the foreman, spliced the finger board.
When asked whether it was customary in drilling operations to throw the drill stem over from behind the finger board before the line takes up, this witness said:
When asked, if the drill stem is left behind the finger board until the line picks up, is it easier or harder for the men on the floor to handle it, he answered that he imagined it would be easier, but if straightened out by its own weight, it would have a tendency to swing out or kick when you first pick it up; that he threw the drill stem out in obedience to the order of the foreman, and when he did this, it broke the finger off on the double board. When he threw the drill stem out from behind the finger board it jerked in the middle where the sag was and kicked back and broke the finger board off. The piece that was broken off fell about 40 feet and hit appellee on the head. It staggered him when it hit him, and he grabbed a pair of tongs. This was the first time he ever threw a drill stem before the line picked it up. This is the first job witness ever worked on that had 2½-inch pipes.
When the pipe was pushed out it broke the finger board in two. Witness had seen finger boards broken by pipes, but had never seen them broken by 2½-inch pipes. The finger board on the fourble is subjected to a strain. The double board had been knocked out of place, and that caused the finger board not to stick out as far as it had, and witness spliced it so the finger board was sticking out as far as it originally did.
Two-inch drill stem is limber and will go all over the derrick, and you could not operate it if you did not have a finger board on the double board. The way they had been operating was to latch on the pipe before pushing it. The pipe swiped the finger board and broke it off. Witness does not know whether it was a backward or forward swipe. The limberer the drill stem is the more substantial the finger board should be.
With the drill stem standing in the double board there a foot and a half back, that would make the pipe bend back in the middle towards the board. When the double board is pretty far out there is considerable sag in the 2-inch drill stem. There is always some sag.
Witness has been in the oil fields since 1922 and worked for various companies and held all positions in drilling crews except running a rig. It is an unusual thing for drill stem, where 2½-inch drill stem is being used, to be thrown out from behind the finger board on the double board before the line picks up where there is a bend in the pipe. Where the finger board is in line you do not have to do that. You have to push it a little and then it goes up. When asked if what he did was out of the ordinary or was the customary practice, he answered that that was the first time on that job. It was out of the ordinary there.
Bill Evans testified that he had been engaged in the oil fields about 10 years and has done drilling and had drilling crews under him; that he never worked on a rig where they made a practice, with 2½ drill stem, of throwing it out from behind the finger board before the line picked up and that he did not think he would like to because it causes it to give a kick back at the bottom and it will sway when it is thrown out from behind the finger board. When they throw it out from behind the finger board it swings it so much that when it comes back it swings back with lots of force; 2½-inch pipe is harder to handle than 4-inch. It is limberer and sways more.
The first witness knew about the injury was when he heard the block hit Gross' head. Then he saw him stagger. It cut him on the head. He had on a heavy felt hat, and it knocked this off. Witness took hold of him and supported him. The piece that hit Gross' head was from a foot to 18 inches long, a piece of fence rail, three-cornered shape, and had some nails driven in it. Would weigh from 4 to 6 pounds. It fell from 40 to 45 feet.
Witness said it was unusual, as far as he knew, to throw the 2½-inch drill stem out from behind the finger board on the fourble board before the line picks up. There is a good deal of sway and when the elevator picks the pipe up it straightens out, and the pipe is standing on the derrick, and if it is thrown out, the jerk is more than if it is left behind the finger board when the elevators pick it up. If it is picked up by the elevators it does not whip the man around if it is behind the finger board. It steadies it when it comes past. It is out of the way to push it forward before lifting up on it; out of the way to pick it up behind the finger board. The normal thing to do is to pick it up with the elevators before they push it out. All the drillers he ever worked for would object to it being thrown out on account of it being liable to hurt the pipe racker in the swing and kick it gets. The names of the drillers witness worked under were John Chew, for the Slaughter Drilling Company; D. McWhirter for Dr. Bussey in Drew county. These men objected to the derrick men throwing out the drill stem before the line picked up. He worked with 2½-inch pipes on the Bussey job and 4-inch pipe on the Slaughter job. With a limber 2½-inch stem the danger would be increased, and has a greater bow in it. If the double board was a foot and a half out of line, the drill stew would come up against it on account of its limberness.
The appellee himself testified that he was 28 years of...
To continue reading
Request your trial