Cactus Drilling Co. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 30 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 8545,8545
• Citation: 525 S.W.2d 902
• Parties: CACTUS DRILLING COMPANY, Appellant, v. Ruller D. WILLIAMS, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 902

525 S.W.2d 902

CACTUS DRILLING COMPANY, Appellant, v. Ruller D. WILLIAMS, Appellee.

No. 8545.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas,

Amarillo.

June 30, 1975.

Rehearing Denied July 31, 1975.

Crenshaw, Dupree & Milam (Cecil C. Kuhne and William R. Moss), Lubbock, for appellant.

Warren Burnett Associated (Richard J. Clarkson,), Odessa, for appellee.

REYNOLDS, Justice.

In this common-law action to recover damages for personal injury received when a pipe fell on his hand, plaintiff secured a favorable jury verdict upon which judgment in his favor was entered. A defective submission of essential elements in the case operates to vacate the judgment. Reversed and remanded.

An oil well, the owner of which was identified as Pan Am, had been drilled in Yoakum County by, and it was under the control of, defendant Cactus Drilling Company. A Sherman Power Tongs crew had run casing into the well. Plaintiff Ruller D. Williams was one of a four-member Byron-Jackson, Inc., crew on the site to cement the well .

The cement was to be pumped from the Byron-Jackson pump truck through a connected two inch, twenty to thirty foot steel pipe, constructed with swivel joints to achieve flexibility, into and through a cement head suspended from the oil derrick some twenty-five feet above the drill rig floor and thence into the casing that had been placed in the hole. It was necessary that the pipe connected to the pump truck be raised from the drill rig floor for attaching to the cement head by means of a catline operated from a cathead. A cathead is an engine-powered revolving drum around which is wound a catline which, in this instance, was described as a rope with a length of cable on the loose end. The cathead was owned by Cactus and, according to Williams, was being operated by an employee of Cactus, whose employees usually operated it. The cementing operation was at the direction of a member of the Byron-Jackson crew stationed in the derrick.

During the afternoon of 16 January 1970, as the Cactus employees were in the process of changing crews, John Bland, a member of the Byron-Jackson crew, attached the catline to the pipe with the assistance of Williams and another member of the Byron-Jackson crew. Before the pipe had been raised to the cement head, the cable, which apparently was too long, engaged the drum and the pipe could not be raised higher. The pipe was lowered to the drill rig floor where some slack was taken out of the cable.

Some person whose identity is disputed, and who acted without being requested to do so by anyone, obtained a chain with a hook on its end from the muddy drill rig floor, wrapped the chain around the catline several times and secured it with a timber hitch tie, and connected it to the pipe. No witness knew the name of the person who made this second connection. Although Williams had deposed a year after the occurrence that he did not know if it was the casing crew or a Cactus employee who made the second connection, he testified at the trial in June of 1974 that a Cactus employee made the connection. Williams readily agreed that all three crews were around the drill rig floor at the time. Bland said he was sure the hookup was made by an employee of Cactus but, when pressed, he stated that he did not know but presumed the person was a Cactus employee. He knew the four Byron-Jackson crew members and said that the tie was not made by a Byron-Jackson man. He further declared that the casing crew had gone inside the doghouse to get warm, that they were not on the drill rig floor, and that they never help in the operation. Frank Cochran, a driller for Cactus who observed the scene after the second connection had been made when he came out of the doghouse where the crew changed clothes, testified that to the best of his knowledge none of the Cactus employees were on the drill rig floor at the time. A tool pusher for Cactus, Glenn Simpson, testified that although the normal procedure was for the Byron-Jackson crew to connect the catline to the pipe, he did not know who made the second connection. He was in the doghouse when he saw the pipe falling, at which time he saw five or six or seven people on the rig floor.

The timber hitch tie was described as the wrapping of the chain around the catline several times and tying it with a double half hitch. The pressure exerted by raising the catline tightens the hitch to secure the connection with the pipe. Bland, who watched the person tie the timber hitch, testified that he told the person, '(W)e never had done it like this before,' and 'that won't work.' Williams saw the connection being made and saw nothing wrong with it . He said he made no objection because he was not familiar with it and he did not know how to do it, although he admitted he had seen these types of connections used many times before in the oil fields. Simpson's testimony was that, although it may not have been standard procedure in the oil field, a timber hitch had been used a long time even though it was not used all of the time. He responded that he knew of nothing wrong with, and in his twenty-four years of experience there had not been any trouble before in, 'tying flexible steel pipe to the catline with wraps around it with a chain in order to pick it up.' Cochran, an employee of Cactus for sixteen years, was of the opinion that a timber hitch is not used very often.

As the pipe was raised the second time, Williams was standing almost beneath it holding, so he and Simpson said, the power tongs out of the way of the pipe. When the pipe had been raised some twelve to fifteen feet, the tie slipped down the catline and the pipe fell some three or four feet, striking Williams on his right hand. After Williams was struck, the connection held, and the pipe was then raised and connected to the cement head.

Williams was hospitalized for his injuries. Later, almost all of the middle finger of his right hand was amputated.

The verdict of the jury was comprised of its answer to Special Issue No. 1, viz.:

Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that an employee for Cactus Drilling failed to properly connect the pipe in question?

Answer 'Yes' or 'No'

ANSWER: Yes

together with its findings that such failure was negligence and a proximate cause of the occurrence, that Williams was not contributorily negligent in the respects inquired about, and that $30,000 would fairly and reasonably compensate Williams for his injuries. The motion for judgment filed by Cactus was overruled, a new trial was denied and judgment in favor of Williams was entered on the verdict. ¹

Defendant Cactus presents various attacks on the composition and submission of special issue no. 1 and the jury's answer made thereto, as well as its contention that the answer entitled it to judgment pursuant to its motion. One of the attacks developed is that the issue assumes that an employee of Cactus made the second connection, which was highly controverted, and another is that the jury's answer of 'yes' to the issue as worded is ambiguous and will not support a judgment.

To recover on his cause of action developed for submission to the jury, Williams had to initially establish that an employee of Cactus connected the catline to the pipe improperly. Cactus denied that the connection was made by its employee and strove to show that, in any event, the connection was properly made. Both of these essentials of the cause of action were vigorously presented and strenuously contested.

That a Cactus employee made the second connection was not undisputed nor conclusively established as Williams submits. In the final analysis, so far as Cochran knew no employee of Cactus was present; Bland only presumed that it was an employee of Cactus; and Williams, who had deposed following the accident that he did not know whether the person was an employee of Sherman Power Tongs or Cactus, was the only witness to testify definitely that the person was an employee of Cactus. This testimony of identity, depending mainly on the declarations of an interested party, is not so clear, direct, positive and without contradiction that it establishes the identity as a matter of law, and the evidence does no more than raise the fact issue. See Cochran v. Wool Growers Central Storage Co., 140 Tex. 184, 166 S.W.2d 904 (1942). Equally unresolved was the question of whether the connection was made improperly.

Thus, a jury resolution of the initial two questions was necessary . Rule 279. ² Although the 1 September 1973-amended Rule 277 invests the court with discretion to submit separate questions with respect to each element of the case or to submit issues broadly, the rule, consistent with the dictates of Rule 279, reiterates that the controlling issues raised by the pleadings and the evidence shall be submitted.

There being no other special issue speaking to either one or both of the two contested elements, these elements were relegated to the coverage provided by special issue no. 1. To be sufficient, the issue must submit the disputed elements for the jury's resolution. Either an assumption of a disputed fact or a phrasing which produces an ambiguous response is fatal.

As cast, the literal language of the issue assumes, or the issue is phrased to lead the jury to believe that it assumed, that an employee of Cactus made the connection. Consequently, the jury was called upon to answer only the single question of whether he failed to properly connect the pipe. There was then no finding, nor any opportunity for the jury to find, whether it was an employee of Cactus who made the connection. The trial court objection clearly pointed out the vice in the wording of the issue, and the overruling of the objection deprived Cactus of its right to the clear submission of the disputed elements that is assured by Rules 277 and 279. Considering the circumstances of the case and the charge as a whole, the force of the assumption contained in the issue...