Foster v. Conrad

• Decision Date: 15 November 1919
• Docket Number: 5163.
• Citation: 261 F. 603
• Parties: FOSTER et al. v. CONRAD. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

261 F. 603

FOSTER et al. v. CONRAD. ^[1]

No. 5163.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

November 15, 1919

T. J Leahy and C. S. Macdonald, all of Pawhuska, Okl., for plaintiffs in error.

Phillip Kates, W. A. Sipe, Jr., and J. P. O'Meara, all of Tulsa Okl., for defendant in error.

Before HOOK, Circuit Judge, and AMIDON and BOOTH, District Judges.

HOOK Circuit Judge.

Conrad sued Foster and Davis, and recovered judgment, for personal injuries caused while in their service by the explosive bursting of a weak and defective tee in the pipes of a gas well from which they had been getting gas for fuel in their oil pumping operations. The defendants prosecuted this writ of error.

The gas well where the accident occurred and defendants' oil well were 1,000 or 1,200 feet apart and were separate and distinct enterprises. There was substantial evidence that the defendants did not own the gas well or its equipment or appliances, and were not operating it or in control of the operation. They simply had a 2-inch pipe line from their own plant to the gas well for the conduct of the fuel. The accident occurred while plaintiff was at the gas well to restore a connection of the pipe line which had been temporarily severed while the operators of the gas well were making certain changes in their pipes. The work plaintiff was to do was a simple mechanical task. It was not dangerous in itself, nor did the doing of it contribute to the injury except as it brought the plaintiff in proximity to the tee that burst. No complaint was made in the testimony of the character or condition of defendant's pipe line; nor was it shown that they had notice of any defect in the pipes of the gas well, or in fact knew anything more about it than the plaintiff himself, if, indeed, as much. The verdict and judgment proceeded upon the theory, expressed in the charge of the trial court to the jury, that if defendants sent plaintiff to the gas well to restore the connection, as the jury found they did, they were subject to the familiar duty of an employer in respect of a safe working place for the employe, and this regardless of ownership, possession, or control of the premises which proved unsafe. In other words the duty of inspection of the gas well premises was laid upon the defendants, though they had no power of ownership or control, and were not using them in their own business otherwise than to connect up their pipe...