Bailey v. Gulliver
| Decision Date | 12 December 1990 |
| Citation | 583 A.2d 699 |
| Parties | Leatrice BAILEY v. Phil GULLIVER et al. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Dennis L. Jones, Clark & Jones, Gardiner, for plaintiff.
Theodore H. Irwin, Jr., Friedman & Babcock, Portland, for defendants.
Before McKUSICK, C.J., and GLASSMAN, CLIFFORD and COLLINS, JJ.
The plaintiff, Leatrice Bailey, appeals from a summary judgment entered in the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Alexander, J.) for the defendants, Pyrofax Gas Corporation, a distributor of propane gas, and Frederick Pushard, d/b/a Fred's Cash Market, a retailer of propane gas, on her complaint against them for damages for her injuries resulting from the explosion of propane gas in her motor home. 1 She contends that because the record reveals a genuine issue of material fact as to the proximate cause of the explosion, the trial court erred in granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment. We affirm the judgment.
The undisputed facts of the case are that Leatrice and Charles Bailey purchased a motor home equipped with appliances requiring liquid propane gas for their operation. Charles Bailey removed a tank containing liquid propane gas, purchased from Fred's Cash Market and supplied by Pyrofax Gas Corporation, from his previously owned trailer and installed it on the motor home. The liquid propane gas contained the appropriate malodorant. There was a disconnected gas line located near the hot water tank in the motor home that allowed the propane gas when turned on to invade the interior of the motor home. The first use of the gas cook stove in the motor home was followed immediately by an explosion inflicting injuries to the plaintiff. The plaintiff did not detect any odor of gas prior to the explosion. Neither defendant was aware of or responsible for the disconnected gas line.
The plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in granting the defendants' motion for a summary judgment. She argues that the defendants' alleged failure to warn her of the specific dangerous quality of liquid propane gas to collect at the lowest level to which it has access (in this case at floor level of the motor home) where it may accumulate without detection until it reaches a level of any open flame (the flame from the cook stove) and ignites, raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the proximate cause of the explosion that should be submitted to a jury as the fact finder. We disagree.
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