Chartiers Val. Gas Co. v. Lynch

• Decision Date: 03 January 1888
• Docket Number: 246
• Citation: 12 A. 435,118 Pa. 362
• Parties: CHARTIERS V. GAS CO. v. ANN LYNCH
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

12 A. 435

118 Pa. 362

CHARTIERS V. GAS CO. v. ANN LYNCH

No. 246

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

January 3, 1888

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Argued November 7, 1887

ERROR TO THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS NO. 1 OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY.

No. 246 October Term 1886, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 608 September Term 1886, C.P.

In the court below an action in case for negligence was instituted by Ann Lynch against the Chartiers Valley Gas Company and the Philadelphia company, to recover damages for injuries received from an explosion of natural gas.

At the trial on May 11, 1887, the facts appeared: The Chartiers Valley Gas Company, a corporation organized under the act of May 29, 1885, P.L. 29, on May 4, 1886, entered into a written contract with Martin Joyce to lay down between certain points a twenty inch cast-iron pipe upon certain streets in Pittsburgh; inter alia, upon Penn Street, passing by the Hotel Anderson. The contract bound the said Joyce to lay the pipe, etc., refill the ditch, pave the same, and clean up streets, "all in accordance with the specifications which accompany and are a part of this agreement," and to give bond in $10,000, with approved sureties, for the faithful performance of his contract. A provision of the specifications was as follows: "All the work is to conform to the requirements of the city ordinance, regulating the laying of natural gas pipes, and to be done in a manner satisfactory to the city engineer and to the superintendent of the first party. The work shall not be considered finished, or any money due thereon, until fully approved and certified to by said superintendent." There were provisions in the natural gas ordinance referred to, that no more than two squares of a street should be open at once that the city should in no event be liable for injury or damage to property by reason of assuming control and direction of the work; nor for any loss or damage sustained by any person by reason of the laying or using of such pipes, but the same should be paid by the gas company who should indemnify the city from all loss and costs therefrom; that the work should be discontinued at the direction of the city engineer if carelessly or unskillfully done; and that the gas company should give bond to the city in $100,000 conditioned for the faithful performance and compliance with all the terms, provisions and conditions of the ordinance.

The line of the Chartiers V. Gas Co. was laid on Penn street, at Hotel Anderson, next to the curb, the location selected by the city engineer. Five feet distant therefrom was the line of the Philadelphia Co. transporting natural gas, and beside the latter were the lines of the Consolidated Gas Company and of the Pittsburgh Gas Company, supplying artificial gas. To get beneath a sewer on Sixth street, the contractor for the defendant company was compelled to go to a depth of eight feet at the point opposite said hotel.

On the evening of July 14, 1886, as Ann Lynch was upon the pavement on Penn street, in front of Hotel Anderson, a series of explosions of gas occurred, the flames coming up through the vault hole several feet high and from the basement windows of the hotel and adjoining buildings. The plaintiff was severely injured.

Prior to the explosion, depressions appeared in the surface of the street beneath which the line had been laid. The gas pipes already down in the street had been exposed in digging the trench. No gas was admitted into the line of the defendant company until July 29th. There was evidence that the company's superintendent and their engineer visited the line from time to time, the latter to see the tests applied. The part of the line where the accident occurred had been completed about two days before the explosion; the contractor was still at work a short distance further down the street, but there was no direct testimony whether or not the line at the place of the injury had been accepted by the company. Investigation after the explosion disclosed that, from the careless refilling and tamping of the trench, the neighboring gas pipes had afterwards settled down, resulting in the breaking of an elbow connecting a service pipe with the Philadelphia Co.'s main, and other injuries of a like nature, causing an escape of gas. It was in evidence that artificial gas from the other lines was mixed with the natural gas in the explosion. Another case of like character was tried with this one.

The court, STOWE, P.J., charged the jury orally as follows:

As has been admitted all around, there is no doubt but that each of these plaintiffs was injured by an explosion that took place at the time and place they say it did. I presume the jury will have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion it was an explosion of gas, either natural or artificial, or perhaps both combined; and that it was the result of gas escaping from broken pipes at some place in the neighborhood of where the explosion occurred. If you should so think, you inquire whose fault it was that this gas exploded; and, while I think of it, I indorse fully the position, that even if there was a mixture of artificial gas with natural gas, or if the gas that exploded was all artificial gas, you could not give a verdict against the artificial gas companies even, if in fault, which it does not appear to have been. If it was the breaking of the pipe which brought about the injury, and that breaking was occasioned by the negligence or misconduct of the Chartiers Valley Gas Company in their excavation of, or in the manner in which they filled up the trench in which they laid their pipe, that company would be responsible in damages for the whole injury done; because the accident and the damage was the result of its misconduct; and it would not be relieved even if it turned out that in this particular case the damage was all from the escape of artificial gas -- provided the breaking of the artificial gas pipes was the result of the negligence or misconduct of the Chartiers Valley Gas Company. If there was any gas came from the Philadelphia Company's line, that company would not be liable, because it did nothing -- if you assume, as appears to be admitted all around, and as the evidence seems to me clearly to show, that its lines were laid properly in the first place -- which was negligent, or which would render them responsible for the breaking of a line that occurred in the manner in which this must have occurred. As I said to the counsel representing that company, I can see nothing that would justify the jury in finding a verdict against that company. The question, however, comes up, and it is for you to look at, with reference to what you have before you, as to the probabilities of the gas emanating from the pipes of the Philadelphia Company. You have no gas at that time in the pipes of the Chartiers Valley Gas Company; you have a broken joint or "L" as it is called, from which gas was found escaping, in the neighborhood of where this explosion took place, and you have gas emanating from probably the other lines. Taking all these matters into consideration, if you believe that there was natural gas involved in the explosion, then, of course, that gas must have come from the line of the Philadelphia Company, and that company, therefore, would probably be held liable if the breaking of its lines resulted from any fault, or misconduct, or negligence on its part. Putting it in that light, under the testimony and assuming that the jury will probably or may probably conclude that some of the gas at least that caused this trouble emanated from the Philadelphia Company line, then you are to go further. That, of itself, will not render the company liable, if you believe the lines were made of proper material, properly located and in proper working order at the time of this injury, as the evidence indicates very clearly to my mind they were. The evidence shows that they were put down in the right way, and shows in addition to that that they had been in working order for some very considerable length of time, and that there was no trouble, and when the investigation was made there was nothing wrong with the line except at this L which was broken, and the breaking of which most probably -- to my mind clearly -- resulted from the sinking of the ground in and about the trench that had been made there by the Chartiers Valley Company.

It is alleged by counsel for the plaintiffs that that company is liable, because while this work was going on -- the laying of the lines -- the superintendent passed along there from time to time and saw the manner in which the work was done. If the evidence satisfies you that he saw the work being done there in such a way as to injure his lines, he would, as the representative of that company, have been in default if he did not take some means to protect them. But you must recollect that at this time the contractor was under no control of the superintendent. He had the legal right to go there and dig out these trenches and fill them up in any reasonable way, subject to the control of the city official whose business it was to see that it was done in a reasonably proper way for the protection of the streets as well as the protection of the public; and before the company could be held liable for his default, it should be apparent, it seems to me, from the testimony, that he neglected to do something which it was his right to do by interfering, not simply with remonstrance. The breaking of those pipes, it would seem to my mind, arose from the fact that the earth was not sufficiently tamped; that the dirt was thrown in carelessly and loosely; and the failure of the Chartiers company to tamp or properly solidify the dirt as they put it in, was the cause, when the...