Coleman v. Hudson Gas and Oil Corporation
| Decision Date | 17 June 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. B--1787,B--1787 |
| Citation | 455 S.W.2d 701 |
| Parties | Emmett O. COLEMAN, Petitioner, v. HUDSON GAS AND OIL CORPORATION, Respondent. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Waldman & Smallwood, Fred J. Rafes and Carl Waldman, Beaumont, for petitioner.
Barnes & Barnes, Robert E. Barnes, Beaumont, for respondent.
Emmett O. Coleman, the employee of a contractor, was injured while performing repair work for Hudson Gas & Oil Corporation. In this suit for damages, Coleman was given a partially favorable verdict by the jury, but the trial court rendered judgment for Hudson. The court of civil appeals affirmed. 444 S.W.2d 807. And we affirm.
At the time of his injury, on February 16, 1959, Coleman was employed by Bannister Construction Company. Bannister, an oil and gas repair firm, had been engaged by Hudson to perform repairs on a high pressure gas system located on Hudson's leasehold at Big Hill, Jefferson County, Texas. One of the repairs required the removal of an adjustable choke from a high pressure line, which meant that the gas pressure had to be dissipated in that line.
To do this, the valves at the wellhead were first closed so that gas no longer flowed into the line. Then, on the other end of the unit, downstream from the choke, a bleeder valve was opened to let the gas remaining in the line escape. The gas was in fact competely bled from the line downstream from this particular adjustable choke. But when Coleman and his co-workers were in the process of unscrewing that choke, the inner part and wheel blew out and struck Coleman in the face. Apparently the gas had frozen at the choke, and high pressure gas had been retained behind that point.
The appeal at hand follows the second trial of this suit. At the end of the first trial, an instructed verdict was granted for Hudson. On appeal the court of civil appeals reversed and remanded, saying that there were issues of fact as to Hudson's negligence. 403 S.W.2d 482. The application for writ of error was refused, no reversible error. In this second trial, though finding adversely to Coleman on other contentions of negligence, the jury found in favor of him in response to the following four issues:
No. 6: 'Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that on the occasion in question the defendant, Hudson Gas & Oil Corporation, had agreed to bleed the gas from the said unit or lines thereof?'
No. 7: 'Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that defendant failed to remove the gas from the said unit or lines thereof?'
No. 8: 'Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such failure, if any, of defendant to remove the gas from said unit or lines thereof, if you have so found, was negligence?'
No. 9: 'Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such negligence, if any, was a proximate cause of the accident in question?'
Issues 8 and 9 were submitted conditionally. The jury answered 'We do' to all four of these issues.
If the question is limited to the defendant's responsibility for the consequences of the danger of the high pressure gas as it existed when the Bannister crew came on the lease, inasmuch as that was a danger which the plaintiff and all persons present appreciated, defendant owed no further duty to the plaintiff and could not be liable. McKee v. Patterson, 153 Tex. 517, 271 S.W.2d 391 (1954).
The problem arises when the court of civil appeals in its opinion states that the evidence shows 'defendant undertook the job of bleeding the line,' and yet affirms judgment for the defendant because the plaintiff failed to 'negative no duty.'
In passing, we might question the usefulness of speaking as though there were some special rule in the owner, occupier, general contractor-invitee field requiring the invitee to 'negative no duty.' Any plaintiff must prove the existence and violation of a legal duty owed to him by the defendant in order to establish tort liability. So the question here, to begin with, is the nature of that duty. Is it the duty of an occupier (Hudson) to protect an invitee (Coleman) from a latent danger (high pressure gas in the system to be repaired)? If so, since in this case Coleman fully appreciated the danger, Hudson owed him no duty. However, if Hudson undertook to bleed the high pressure gas...
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