Berry v. Shell Petroleum Co.
| Decision Date | 26 January 1935 |
| Docket Number | 31727. |
| Citation | 40 P.2d 359,141 Kan. 6 |
| Parties | BERRY v. SHELL PETROLEUM CO. et al. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Sedgwick County; Ross McCormick, Judge.
On petition for rehearing.
Petition denied.
For original opinion, see 140 Kan. 94, 33 P.2d 953.
Claude I. Depew, W. E. Stanley, and William C. Hook, all of Wichita (Albert Faulconer, Kirke W. Dale, and C. L. Swarts, all of Arkansas City, William H. Zwick and A. L. Hull, both of Ponca City, Okl., and Redmond S. Cole, of Tulsa, Okl., of counsel) for appellants.
Joe T Rogers and James A. Conly, both of Wichita, for appellee.
The court permitted a second petition for a rehearing to be filed on account of pendency of other cases involving the same and similar questions. Ruling on the motion has been delayed until the related cases were heard.
The chief complaint respecting the decision was, that certain limitations on the doctrine of liability without fault were not spelled out in the opinion. Thus it was nowhere said that if a producer of salt water confined his salt water in perfectly safe tanks, and an earthquake should wreck the tanks, the producer would not be liable for escape of the water. Likewise it was not said in the opinion that if escape did occur, there would still be a limitation on liability which would normally extend only to natural and foreseeable consequences. The limitations were taken for granted, and so were not separately discussed. The producers were not sheltered under any of them, and the general statements of the opinion went directly to liability under the facts. The limitations are sufficiently discussed in the opinion in State Highway Commission v. Empire Oil & Refining Co. (Kan.) 40 P.2d 355, this day decided.
Not considering the statute, there is good ground for holding ultrahazardous occupations must be conducted at the risk of those who engage in them, without regard to intervention of vis major and the like, but no statement on that subject is called for in this case.
On the subject of legal consequences of misconduct, the general rule is stated in Harper on Torts, § 119, p. 270, as follows ...
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