Curtis v. Shell Pipe Line Corp.

• Citation: 265 P.2d 488
• Decision Date: 22 December 1953
• Docket Number: No. 35640,35640
• Parties: CURTIS v. SHELL PIPE LINE CORP.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 488

265 P.2d 488

1953 OK 382

CURTIS v. SHELL PIPE LINE CORP.

No. 35640.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Dec. 22, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 12, 1954.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A general demurrer admits the truth of all the facts which are properly pleaded in the petition, and the petition must be liberally construed, and all such facts must be taken as true for the purposes of the demurrer.

2. A cause of action is stated where the petition alleges that plaintiff was injured as a proximate result of defendant's negligence while making prudent effort to extricate his cow from a ditch which defendant dug across plaintiff's pasture and negligently left open and unbarricaded.

James M. Springer, Jr., Stillwater, for plaintiff in error.

A. R. Swank, A. R. Swank, Jr., E. C. Swank, Stillwater, for defendant in error.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant was the owner of a pipe line which ran across plaintiff's property by a right-of-way agreement; and, on or about December 18, 1951, defendant dug a ditch upon its said right-of-way.

Plaintiff's amended petition alleged: that he suffered injury and damages, a painful and permanent injury and rupture of his intervertebral disc, from being thrown to the ground by the violent jerking of the head of his imprisoned cow, which he and two other persons were attempting to extricate from a ditch, some four feet wide and three and one-half feet deep, by defendant dug, and negligently left open and unbarricaded, a distance of approximately 375 feet across plaintiff's land, into which his said cow had fallen and was unable to extricate herself; that plaintiff was acting in a wise and prudent manner in attempting to remove her from the ditch, she being valuable property; that his efforts were to preserve said property.

Plaintiff further alleged that defendant knew that such open ditch was in plaintiff's pasture; was near his only source of livestock water, being a pond in this pasture; was where plaintiff kept his livestock and turkeys; and that the described ditch constituted a hazard and danger to plaintiff, his family, and his livestock.

Defendant demurred to plaintiff's amended petition on the ground it did not state a cause of action.

The plaintiff maintains that his amended petition stated a cause of action based on defendant's negligence in digging the ditch across the pasture, leaving it open and unbarricaded and that defendant should have reasonably expected that a cow might fall into the ditch and be unable to extricate herself and that plaintiff upon finding his cow in the ditch was entitled to make a prudent effort to rescue the animal and to minimize damages.

The defendant contends that the described ditch was not sufficiently a hazard to charge the defendant with negligence in leaving it open and unbarricaded and that no one could reasonably expect a cow to fall therein or to be caught in such a manner as to be unable to extricate herself, or that the plaintiff would go to the rescue of the animal and be injured thereby. Defendant also contends that the act of the plaintiff in attempting to remove the cow was an intervening cause completely insulating the original negligence, if any there was, thereby preventing the amended petition from stating a cause of action.

In support of its demurrer defendant argues and asserts that 'it could not reasonably be expected that a cow would fall in a small ditch', 'be unable to extricate herself', or 'that the owner would go to her rescue and thus be injured', and 'under the allegations of the amended petition there is an absolute want of proximate cause.'

A general demurrer admits the truth of all the facts which are properly pleaded in the petition, and the petition must be liberally construed, and all such facts must be taken as true for the purposes of the demurrer. Schuman v. Williams, 176 Okl. 420, 57 P.2d 821; Clinkscales v. Mundkoski, 183 Okl. 12, 79 P.2d 562.

We have heretofore held that the digging of a ditch and the leaving of it unbarricaded constitute a dangerous condition which, when created or permitted to exist, may be actionable. Apache Gas Company v. Thompson, 177 Okl. 594, 61 P.2d 567; Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Shirley, 190 Okl. 319, 123 P.2d 669. We cannot agree with defendant's assertion that one could not reasonably expect a cow to fall in a ditch, such as is described in the amended petition, or be unable to extricate herself therefrom. Certainly, plaintiff's pasture was not as safe a place for his livestock after the ditch was dug as it was before. The ditch, left unbarricaded, was an excavation into which livestock was in danger of falling. If a cow, going about in its owner's pasture, becomes lodged in a ditch dug by another, from which she cannot extricate hereself, her position may be the direct and proximate result of the negligence of the digger of the ditch. See Cooper v. Richland County, 76 S.C. 202, 56 S.E. 958, 10 L.R.A.,N.S., 799; and annotations in 64 A.L.R. 522.

As we said in Clinkscales v. Mundkoski, 183 Okl. 12, 79 P.2d 562, 564, 'we do not say as a matter of law that this was negligence' on the part of the defendant; 'we do say that a question of fact was thereby presented for the jury's determination'. Clearly it cannot be said that a judgment for plaintiff based on primary negligence with respect to the ditch, under the alleged circumstances, would be reversed by an appellate court for insufficiency of the evidence. We are of the opinion that the amended petition to this point states a cause of action.

But since the injury was to the owner through the medium of the cow in the ditch we must determine the other questions of law raised by the defendant: That even if it was negligence to leave the ditch in the condition as alleged in the amended petition a cause of action is not stated because, (a) defendant could not have reasonably anticipated the results which were had, or (b) the act of the plaintiff broke the line of causation and insulated the injury from such negligence.

The accident to the cow was an injury to the owner. Page v. Town of Bucksport, 64 Me. 51, 18 Am.Rep. 239. Plaintiff desired to protect himself from the injury, to minimize the damages and to save the property. With the cow in the ditch it was but natural for him to attempt to get her out; in attempting to do so he caught the head of the cow, while she was in the ditch, and with the aid of two men who grasped other portions of the cow's body, he and they sought to remove the cow from the ditch; the cow violently shook her head and threw the plaintiff to the ground resulting in an alleged injury to his back; the defendant was bound to anticipate these happenings. Everyone is bound to anticipate the results naturally following from his acts.

In the case of Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Courtney, 182 Okl. 582, 79 P.2d 235, at page 240, we said:

'A party guilty of negligence or omission of duty is responsible for all the consequence, which a prudent and experienced party, fully acquainted with all the circumstances which in fact exist, whether they could have been ascertained by reasonable diligence or not, would have thought at the time of the negligent act as reasonably possible to follow, if they had been suggested to his mind.'

In that case we held that where the Gas Company had contracted to inspect plaintiff's gas conduits it was bound to anticipate that shortly after the gas was released from the mains to the meter, on plaintiff's premises, that plaintiff or some other person would open the meter value and turn gas into plaintiff's lines and fixtures. In the Courtney case, supra, a plumber turned the valves at the meter and the gas flowed into plaintiff's lines and escaped from an uncapped line under the house, which had not been detected by the defendant. An explosion followed and the plaintiff therein was injured, and a judgment in his favor was affirmed.

Thus, in the Courtney case, supra, the act of the plumber, under the direction of the plaintiff, in turning on the gas, intervened between the time the Gas Company left the gas at the meter and the time subsequent thereto when the explosion occurred and with respect to this situation we said:

'Where there is an intervening, responsible agency, which directly produces the injury, question as to whether original negligence is to be regarded as the proximate cause of the injury, or only as a condition, or remote cause, is to be determined by ascertaining whether the agency which intervened was of such a character, and the circumstances under which it occurred were such, that it might have been reasonably expected that such agency or a similar one would have intervened in such a way as to be likely to produce an injury similar to the one actually caused.'

Plaintiff intervened to remove his cow from the ditch, which was to be reasonably expected in the usual course of events, and the force went into action which injured him.

'Where under the circumstances an intervening responsible agency might reasonably have been expected in the usual course of events, and according to common experience, then the chain of causation, extending from the original wrongful act to the injury, is not broken by the independent, intervening agency, and the original wrongful act will be treated as the proximate cause.' Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Courtney, supra.

In addition, defendant should have anticipated such action because plaintiff had a right to preserve his property; also the plaintiff could not permit the cow to die without an effort to save it; 38 Am.Jur. 739-740, Sec. 81, Negligence; Illinois Central R. Co. v. Siler, 229 Ill. 390, 82 N.E. 362, 15 L.R.A.,N.S., 819, 11 Ann.Cas. 368; and, while attempting to do so, plaintiff must be regarded as under the direct and immediate force of the first cause which made such effort necessary. Defendant's negligence caused plaintiff to attempt to release the cow. This completed a continuous sequence from the primary negligence to...