Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp. v. Henry, DELHI-TAYLOR
| Decision Date | 12 May 1966 |
| Docket Number | DELHI-TAYLOR,No. 125,125 |
| Parties | OIL CORPORATION, Appellant, v. Will Ray HENRY, Appellee. . Corpus Christi |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
James C. Watson, of Keys, Russell, Watson & Seaman, Corpus Christi, for appellant.
Fred C. Auforth, Hubert L. Stone, Jr., Corpus Christi, for appellee.
This is a personal injury suit. Will Ray Henry, the appellee, brought suit against Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation to recover damages for extensive burns received by him while working as a welder on the premises then under the control of Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation, the appellant here.
The case was tried to a jury, and in response to the answers of special issues, judgment was entered in favor of Henry for the sum of $105,306.52. The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, one of the appellees, the workmen's compensation insurer for the employer of Henry, intervened to recover the sum of $32,986.52 to which it was subrogated. Its appearance was only for the court and was not shown to the jury.
Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation, the appellant, engaged Roy Vickers Lease Service to do some rather extensive work on its pipelines running from its refinery in Corpus Christi to the docks on the ship channel at the Port of Corpus Christi. The appellant owned and operated sixteen pipelines which carried various hydrocarbon products from the refinery to the port. These dock loading lines ran generally downhill from the refinery to the port and across property owned by Columbia Southern Corporation from whom appellant had obtained an easement of right-of-way. Columbia Southern had decided to widen its entrance roadway which crossed at right angle to these pipelines. Under the provisions of the easement agreement, Columbia Southern notified appellant that it must extend the casings around each of the pipelines so that road material could be placed on top of the pipes and the road widened at that point. These sixteen pipelines had been installed periodically by the appellant over the past thirty years as the need demanded. The lines varied from two inches to sixteen inches in diameter and were buried in the ground at depths varying from four inches to ten feet.
The particular job that the appellant was undertaking called for extending the casings (simply placing a larger pipe around each pipeline so that any of the pipelines could be removed thereafter at any time from under the road without disturbing the road material) as a part of phase one of this job. Phase two of the job was the cutting and lowering of all of the pipelines to a particular uniform depth. This second operation required that all the lines be drained and emptied.
Appellant hired Vickers to do the work on a labor and equipment rental basis. This was required by the appellant because it was most difficult to ascertain in advance the exact type of work that needed to be performed because of the age and condition of some of the pipelines. Some of the pipelines had corroded and would be in need of welding repairs, doping and wrapping before they were put finally at rest underneath the road. No one knew how much work would be reqired. Vickers submitted to appellant its standard printed rate schedule outlining the hourly rates for each man and the type of work they would perform and the various types of equipment proposed to be used on the job. Other than submitting the printed rate schedule to the appellant, the contract of employment was oral. It was understood that the appellant would furnish a construction superintendent who was to consult with and determine what repairs were to be made to the existing pipelines. He would represent the appellant at the jobsite and determine to his satisfaction the progress of the work. It was further understood that the contract of employment could be terminated at any time by the appellant's superintendent.
In addition to the casings for the sixteen dock loading lines, appellant had a large twenty-four inch casing in the easement and under the existing entrance roadway which had no pipelines running through it, as it was for future use only. This large two foot casing was buried approximately ten feet deep and was also to be extended by Vickers. It was necessary for a huge ditch to be excavated into which a casing extension would be lowered and welded to the existing casing. At first the ditch was being dug by a back-hoe (a tractor with a flexible digging arm) but it became obvious that this machine could not complete the job. Appellant's superintendent, Perkinson, directed Vickers to bring out a dragline to perform this excavation. The ditch was to be three feet or more wide, twenty-seven feet long, and approximately ten feet deep. The amount of dirt removed from the excavation was voluminous. Part of the dirt was placed on the side of the road and the rest of it in the easement which was an overburden on the existing pipelines in the easement.
After the ditch had been dug, a twenty-four inch casing pipe was lowered into the ditch by a special machine and held in place so that it could be welded onto existing casing under the road. Henry, the appellee, was an employee of Vickers and was ordered down into the ten foot hole to weld the two pieces of twenty-four inch pipe. Unknown to him, the dragline was moved around some twenty or thirty feet from the existing hole, to remove the pile of dirt overburdening the existing pipelines so that the next pipe could be uncovered and casing placed around it.
Mr. Perkinson, the appellant's superintendent, watched the dragline dig the large ditch and then move over and uncover the lines. He then left the jobsite to return a transit to his office. While Perkinson was gone the dragline operator continued to uncover the lines and as he was uncovering a second line, the teeth of the dragline bucket punctured a ten inch dock loading line containing liquid toluene under pressure. Toluene is a highly flammable hydrocarbon petroleum product described as being similar to gasoline and which is sometimes used as a blend to gasoline. The fluid toluene spirted up into the air, arched over and downwind some twenty feet and into the hole where the appellee Henry was welding, saturating his clothing. The toluene ignited from Henry's torch and the entire hole became a mass of flames, burning Henry over approximately eighty-five per cent of his body, with first, second and third degree burns. He was able to extricate himself from the hold and fellow workment were able to tear off his clothes and put out the fire. As a result of his burns appellee Henry was in the hospital some three months, incurring medical expenses of approximately $20,000.00.
The toluene line which sloped from the refinery toward the dock was not under pump pressure at the time, but the line was full of toluene under static pressure, and possibly a slight pressure from thermal expansion. The static pressure was described as being the weight of the liquid in the pipeline from the point of puncture uphill to the refinery. It was likened to a barrel full of liquid with a hole punched in at the bottom. The weight of the liquid would squirt the fluid out until it had drained down to the hole. As soon as the line drained to the point where the pipe was punctured, the toluene ceased to flow and the fire at the jobsite was quickly brought under control by fire-fighting equipment.
The work to be performed by Vickers and his employees was considered to be very hazardous. Both Mr. Wright, appellant's engineer in charge of contractual arrangements, and Perkinson, appellant's onsite superintendent, had considered the work as being hazardous. Perkinson had considered that one of the hazards was exactly what had happened on this occasion. He admitted that while he was supervising another pipeline job for the appellant's plant, some five years previous to this accident, a dragline bucket had punctured a pipeline. Both parties admit that Vickers and his personnel were business invitees.
Appellee Henry plead that defendant-appellant owed him a duty to provide him with a safe place to work; that appellant owed him a duty to inspect the premises and to warn such invitees at the jobsite of dangerous conditions discovered by such inspection, as well as dangerous conditions known to appellant by reason of its intimate knowledge of the pipelines from the date of their original installation to the time of the accident. Pleading further, appellee contended that the appellant owed said business invitees that additional duty to take such action to protect them from injuries as would have been taken by a reasonably prudent controller of the premises. Appellee Henry plead that the appellant knew that the pipeline which sprayed toluene on appellee Henry contained toluene under pressure, that the appellant knew that the dragline was being used to uncover pipelines and that such operations carried with it the risk of rupturing such pipes. Appellee Henry contended that appellant breached and violated the duty owed to the appellee. Among others, the appellee plead that the appellant breached and violated the duty to release the pressure on the toluene line before the dragline was used to uncover the same, and to inspect the toluene line to determine the amount of pressure therein before the dragline was used to uncover the same.
The defendant-appellant, Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation, answered contending that it was guilty of no negligence and violated no duty to appellee Henry; that Vickers, appellee's employer, was an independent contractor, and knew of the method of doing the work and the work to be accomplished by the dragline, and was aware that there were numerous pipelines in the area transporting petroleum products which were highly inflammable; appellant denied that its job superintendent Perkinson was in control of the work and at no time intended to direct the detailed...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation v. Henry, DELHI-TAYLOR
...rendered judgment on the verdict awarding Henry a recovery of his damages as found by the jury. The court of civil appeals affirmed. 403 S.W.2d 885. We reverse the judgments of the courts below and here render judgment that the plaintiff take Delhi-Taylor owns a refinery at Corpus Christi a......