Elwood Natural Gas & Oil Company v. Glaspy
| Decision Date | 11 May 1906 |
| Docket Number | 5,932 |
| Citation | 77 N.E. 956,38 Ind.App. 634 |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
| Parties | ELWOOD NATURAL GAS & OIL COMPANY ET AL. v. GLASPY |
Rehearing denied October 12, 1906.
From Madison Circuit Court; Daniel W. Comstock, Special Judge.
Suit by Michael Glaspy against the Elwood Natural Gas & Oil Company and others. From a decree for plaintiff, defendants appeal.
Reversed.
Gilbert R. Call, for appellants.
Bartlett H. Campbell and Ward L. Roach, for appellee.
The appellee sued the appellants, Elwood Natural Gas & Oil Company, Citizens Gas & Mining Company and Citizens Heat & Light Company. A demurrer of each of the appellants to the complaint for want of sufficient facts was overruled. In the complaint it was alleged that each of the appellants was a corporation and that each of them was and had been engaged in the business of furnishing gas for domestic consumption for and about the city of Elwood Madison county, Indiana, and the vicinity thereof for a long time; that the first two companies named had been so engaged in furnishing natural gas for more than eleven years (this cause having been commenced in June, 1903), "and still have some interest therein, as plaintiff is informed and believes;" that these two companies were organized as separate organizations, but since their organization they had either consolidated or had such an arrangement between themselves as to the distribution of gas to their various customers that they had exchanged lines and gas-pipes, and that the customers of one company were furnished gas through the pipes of the other company; that the exact nature and condition of this arrangement the appellee did not know, and he could not state which line belonged to either company or which company actually furnished gas to the appellee or other customers; that since the organization of these two companies they had pretended to sell, convey and dispose of all their rights, property, and franchises to the other appellant Citizens Heat & Light Company, and this transfer, if any was made, was made since the execution of the appellee's contract "hereinafter referred to," for the purpose of avoiding the obligation of those companies to the appellee "hereinafter set out," and without consideration and with full knowledge of such obligation, leaving said consolidated companies without assets and insolvent, "and is subject to all the rights and privileges of the plaintiff under said contract so referred to;" that on October 1, 1889, the appellee entered into a written contract with said Elwood Natural Gas & Oil Company, by the terms of which that company was to furnish the appellee with gas in his dwelling for the fuel and light therein "as long as gas exists in said wells or the defendants have a supply thereof, for the consideration of $ 50, which consideration the plaintiff says he paid; that the plaintiff is entitled under his said contract to the use of gas for fuel and light in his residence situated on," etc., describing certain lots in Elwood; that "there is an abundance of gas in the wells and lines and pipes of said defendant companies to furnish him with gas,...
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