Cannon v. Winnfield Oil And Gas Company
| Citation | 4 La.App. 384 |
| Decision Date | 02 June 1926 |
| Docket Number | 2466 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana (US) |
| Parties | CANNON v. WINNFIELD OIL AND GAS COMPANY |
Rehearing Refused June 30, 1926.
Appeal from the Eighth Judicial District Court of Louisiana, Parish of Winn, Hon. F. E. Jones, Judge.
Action by David E. Cannon against Winnfield Oil & Gas Company, et al. There was judgment for defendant and plaintiff appealed.
Judgment affirmed.
R. W Oglesby, of Winnfield, attorney for plaintiff, appellant.
Pearce and Fuller, of Winnfield, attorneys for defendant, appellee Winnfield Oil & Gas Company.
A Leonard Allen, of Winnfield, attorney for defendant, appellee, J. L. Powell.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
In this suit plaintiff sued to recover $ 2500.00 damages for the loss by fire of his dwelling house and contents at Winnfield, Louisiana, on March 4, 1925. The fire is alleged to have been caused by the explosion of a lamp in the house, which lamp, it is alleged contained a mixture of kerosene and gasoline that was sold to plaintiff as kerosene oil by the defendant, J. L. Powell and sold to J. L. Powell as such by defendant Winnfield Oil & Gas Company.
On motion of plaintiff a remittitur of $ 500.00 was entered.
Defendants moved to strike out paragraph five of the petition and also filed pleas of vagueness and an exception of no cause of action, all of which were overruled by the court.
Defendants denied liability and alleged that no act of negligence, carelessness or fault of theirs caused the injury complained of.
On these issues the case was tried and there was judgment in favor of defendants and plaintiff appealed.
OPINIONThe exception filed in this case presents very interesting questions of law, but under the view that we have taken of the facts the exception need not be passed on.
The evidence shows that plaintiff's house and contents were destroyed by fire, but the exact cause of the fire is not established.
Plaintiff contends that it was caused by the explosion of a lamp and that the explosion was caused by the lamp being filled with a mixture of kerosene and gasoline; and that as the evidence shows that he purchased kerosene from defendant J. L. Powell and that Powell purchased it from defendant Winnfield Oil & Gas Company and that Powell had sold to other persons some of the same kerosene and some of the kerosene so sold by him to other persons was found to be highly inflammatory, this conclusively proves that the house was set afire by the explosion of the lamp and that the lamp exploded because the kerosene in it was mixed with gasoline.
There are thousands of ways in which a house can catch afire, and since the time that men began to build houses, houses have burned from various causes. All over the world houses are catching afire from causes that no one can account for, and the mere fact...
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