Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc.
| Decision Date | 11 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-293,84-293 |
| Parties | Lynn D. BERRY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HOLSTON WELL SERVICE, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Jones, Jones & Alexander, Glenn Alexander, Cameron, for plaintiff-appellant.
Raggio, Cappel, Chozen & Berniard, Thomas L. Raggio, Lake Charles, Hall, Lestage & Landreneau, Wm. E. Hall, Jr., De Ridder, Stockwell, Sievert, Viccellio, Clements & Shaddock, Robert W. Clements, Lake Charles, and Caffery, Oubre, Dugas & Campbell, John Blackwell, New Iberia, for defendants-appellees.
Before DOMENGEAUX, STOKER and KNOLL, JJ.
Plaintiff-appellant, Lynn D. Berry, an employee of CRC Western Wireline Services, Inc., filed this tort lawsuit against defendants-appellees, Sohio Petroleum Company, Holston Well Service, Inc., Crutcher Resources Corporation, Continental Insurance Company, (Sohio's liability insurer), and Home Insurance Company, (Holston's and Crutcher's liability insurer), for personal injuries he allegedly sustained while performing his duties as a member of an oilfield wireline crew during workover operations of a lease and well owned and operated by Sohio.
The district court granted a motion for summary judgment entered on behalf of Sohio Petroleum Company and Continental Insurance Company, thereby dismissing the plaintiff's tort demand against those two parties. In his oral reasons which were transcribed into the record the district judge ruled that Sohio was the statutory employer of the plaintiff and therefore not amenable to suit in tort.
The plaintiff appealed the district judge's ruling and we affirmed the decision in Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc., 467 So.2d 90 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1985).
Mr. Berry applied for writs of certiorari and review to the Louisiana Supreme Court and the latter tribunal granted the application at 474 So.2d 1296 (La.1985) with the following language:
"Granted and remanded for reconsideration in light of Rowe v. Northwestern National Ins. Co., 471 So.2d 226 (La.1985)."
We are somewhat confused by the high court's procedure. It has not reversed our original holding in Berry. It simply directs us to reconsider the Berry case in light of the Rowe case. If the court disagrees with our original decision in this case, its disagreement, it would seem, should be explained away by it rather than by us. However, we shall adhere to the mandate of the Supreme Court and reconsider in light of Rowe v. Northwestern National Insurance Company, 471 So.2d 226 (La.1985).
In Rowe the plaintiff was an employee of Ace Electric Company. The plaintiff was injured while reconnecting an electrical wire to a pump at defendant Cargill, Inc.'s bulk liquid import facility in Reserve, La. Cargill, Inc. is an agricultural company which is engaged in the marketing and transportation of agricultural commodities.
The pump had been removed from the Cargill facility six to eight weeks prior to the accident for routine maintenance, i.e., cleaning and rebuilding. After necessary repairs to the pump had been completed, the pump was reinstalled by Cargill employees. The plaintiff was then recalled to the Cargill facility where he made the necessary electrical connections to restore power to the pump. The pump was then turned on for testing and as it operated a coupling was thrown from the shaft which struck and injured the plaintiff.
The Supreme Court held that Rowe, the plaintiff, was not the statutory employee of Cargill, Inc. The court reasoned that the routine maintenance of the pump was part of the trade, business or occupation of Cargill. However, as Cargill did not prove that the disconnection and reconnection of the electricity allowing maintenance of the pump to be performed was customarily done by Cargill employees, Cargill was not in the trade, business or occupation of reconnecting electricity to the pump.
We feel that Rowe is readily distinguishable from the case before us, just as we explained in our original opinion that Lewis v. Exxon Corporation, 441 So.2d 192 (La.1983), and Benson v. Seagraves, 436 So.2d 525 (La.1983) were distinguishable. Rowe involves routine maintenance activities in a plant, while this case deals with the complex integrated, interdependent, and interrelated operations required for the safe and efficient discovery, recovery and production of minerals. The unique nature of the oil industry would make it cost prohibitive for a single principal to directly employ all of the individuals necessary to successfully drill for and produce oil and gas. During drilling, workover, and production of a well each interrelated operation is so essential to success that all of the component operations must necessarily be considered a part of the principal's trade, business or occupation and consequently every employee engaged in those operations must be considered statutory employees. The perforation of a well during workover operations on an oil or gas well cannot be equated to either the routine maintenance or the reconnection of electricity in the Rowe case.
We interpret Rowe as merely a reiteration and rearticulation of the jurisprudential rule of law found in Louis v. Exxon, supra, and Benson v. Seagraves, supra. We distinguished Louis v. Exxon and Benson v. Seagraves in our original opinion, as we here distinguish Rowe. A duplication of effort results when this Court is directed to reconsider our original opinion in light of legal principals we have already considered and distinguished in our initial holding.
We therefore adhere to our original holding that the district court was correct in granting the motion for summary judgment on behalf of Sohio Petroleum and Continental Insurance, and for dismissing the plaintiff's tort case against them. The perforating of wells during workover operations is part of Sohio Petroleum's business, therefore Sohio is the plaintiff's statutory employer and his only remedy against Sohio is in worker's compensation.
We have reconsidered this case in view of Rowe, as we originally considered it in light of Rowe's ascendants, Louis v. Exxon and Benson v. Seagraves, and we maintain that Rowe does not apply to the facts at hand.
We respectfully suggest, in instances such as this, that upon writ application,...
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Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc.
...Inc., 474 So.2d 1296 (La.1985). In a second opinion, the court of appeal reaffirmed their earlier decision. Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc., 479 So.2d 944 (La.App. 3d Cir.1985). The court likewise distinguished our decision in Rowe on the ground that Rowe involved routine maintenance ac......
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Guillory v. Ducote, 86-405
...for summary judgment that it was plaintiff's statutory employer and thus immune from tort. The intermediate court affirmed, 479 So.2d 944 (La.App. 3 Cir.1986). The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed, holding essentially that the wire line perforation work was highly specialized, not customari......
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Teague v. Sawyer Drilling Co.
...Well Service, Inc., 467 So.2d 90 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1985) and the Third Circuit's subsequent consideration in Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc., 479 So.2d 944 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1985). In those cases, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal dealt with the issue of statutory employment in the oil an......
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Palmer v. Palmer, 84-813
...v. Jimmie B. Guinn, Inc., 449 So.2d 1382 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1984), affirmed 462 So.2d 145 (La.1985), and Berry v. Holston Well Service, Inc., et al, 479 So.2d 944 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1985). As an interesting corollary, for the first time in this case, appellee's attorney filed a peremptory excep......