Champlin Refining Co. v. Smith

• Decision Date: 03 March 1942
• Docket Number: 30166.
• Citation: Champlin Refining Co. v. Smith, 123 P.2d 253, 190 Okla. 287, 1942 OK 98 (Okla. 1942)
• Parties: CHAMPLIN REFINING CO. et al. v. SMITH.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

123 P.2d 253

190 Okla. 287, 1942 OK 98

CHAMPLIN REFINING CO. et al. v. SMITH.

No. 30166.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

March 3, 1942

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Before evidence as to the result of any analysis of water made by a chemist is admissible, the party offering the same must show similarity of conditions to the water prevailing at the time of the occurrence involved in the controversy.

2. Where in an action to recover damages alleged to have resulted from an oil well operator permitting salt water to escape from his wells and flow into a stream, there is no evidence tending to prove that the defendant had permitted salt water to escape and flow into the stream at or before the date of the alleged injury, a demurrer to the evidence of plaintiff, if timely presented, should be sustained.

3. Proof of the existence of a condition or state of facts at a given time does not raise any presumption that the same condition or state of facts existed at a prior date.

Appeal from Superior Court, Okmulgee County; Harland A. Carter Judge.

Action by Oscar Smith against Champlin Refining Company and others for damages alleged to have been caused by pollution of a river by deposit of salt water and other deleterious substances from oil wells operated by defendants. From a judgment for plaintiff, the defendants appeal.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

Anglin & Stevenson and O. S. Huser, all of Holdenville, and S.W Biggers, of Wewoka, for plaintiffs in error.

E. W Smith, of Henryetta, for defendant in error.

RILEY Justice.

This is an appeal from a verdict and judgment obtained by defendant in error, herein referred to as plaintiff, against Champlin Refining Company, ten other corporations and three individual oil producers, herein referred to as defendants, on account of damages alleged to have been caused by pollution of the North Canadian River by deposit of salt water and other deleterious substances from oil wells operated by defendants.

This action was commenced February 9, 1940.

Plaintiff alleged damages in the sum of $2,580 itemized as follows:

Damage to 70 head of steers	$700.00
Damage to 60 head of cows ...........................	300.00
About 28 acres of grass killed and land damaged .....	280.00
Damage to land includes trees killed ................	800.00
Expense of procuring other pasture ..................	500.00
	---------
Total .........................................	$2,580.00

The issues were tried to a jury resulting in a general verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $1,000.

The defendants filed a joint petition in error setting up twenty specifications of alleged error. They are presented under two general propositions.

The first is that the court erred in admitting incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial testimony. Plaintiff's claim was that his land and the grass pasture thereon and certain timber were injured by water containing salt, etc., from overflow of the stream after February 9, 1938, and before February 9, 1940; that his cattle were injured by drinking salt water in the river from about December 1938 to about March 10, 1939.

Plaintiff over the objection of defendants was permitted to introduce the testimony of a chemist showing the salt content of three samples of water shown and stipulated to have been taken from the North Canadian River, in the vicinity of plaintiff's land, on January 10, 1940. The samples showed salt content as follows: One sample approximately 6 1/2%; one sample approximately 5%, and the third sample about 3 1/2%. There was no showing that the condition of the stream at the time of the alleged injury was substantially the same as it was at the time the samples in question were taken from the river. The admission of the testimony in question was error under the rule stated in Skelly Oil Co. v. Jordan, 186...