Heh v. Consolidated Gas Co.
| Decision Date | 06 January 1902 |
| Docket Number | 138 |
| Citation | 201 Pa. 443,50 A. 994 |
| Parties | Heh, Appellant, v. Consolidated Gas Company |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued November 6, 1901
Appeal, No. 138, Oct. T., 1901, by plaintiff, from judgment of C.P. No. 3, Allegheny Co., Aug. T., 1899, No. 282, on verdict for defendant in case of Raymond Heh v. The Consolidated Gas Company. Reversed.
Trespass to recover damages to property caused by the explosion of gas. Before KENNEDY, P.J.
The circumstances of the accident are fully detailed in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The court gave binding instructions for defendant.
Verdict and judgment for defendant.
Error assigned was in giving binding instructions for defendant.
Judgment reversed and venire facias de novo awarded.
J. E O'Donnell, with him George H. Stengel, for appellant. -- The case was for the jury: Koelsch v. Phila. Co., 152 Pa. 355; Smith v. Boston Gas Light Co., 129 Mass. 319; Devlin v. Beacon Light Co., 198 Pa. 583; Greaney v. Holyoke Water Power Co., 174 Mass. 437.
Edwin W. Smith, with him Knox & Reed, for appellee. -- When the testimony is not in itself improbable, is not at variance with any proved or admitted facts, or with ordinary experience, and comes from witnesses whose candor there is no apparent ground for doubting, the jury is not at liberty to indulge in a capricious disbelief: Lonzer v. Lehigh Valley R.R. Co., 196 Pa. 610.
Before McCOLLUM, C.J., MITCHELL, DEAN, FELL, BROWN, MESTREZAT and POTTER, JJ.
MR. Justice potter/:
The plaintiff in this case was the owner of a brick dwelling house, situated on Wylie avenue, Pittsburg. The defendant company conveys gas along that street through two four-inch mains. The one upon the south side of the street, and nearest to plaintiff's property, is about eleven feet from the cellar wall, and about three feet underground. The evidence indicates that the soil in that vicinity is soft and shaly. The plaintiff does not use gas in his house, nor was it piped for that purpose, but a short pipe extended from the main through the front wall of the cellar.
On the night of April 5, 1899, gas was found to be escaping from the defendant's pipes into the cellar of plaintiff's house, and an explosion occurred, followed by fire, which resulted in material injury to the property. It appears that an abandoned coal mine extended beneath that entire neighborhood. Near the plaintiff's house the roof of the mine is only about thirteen feet below the surface and about seven feet below the bottom of plaintiff's cellar. After the fire in the cellar was extinguished, the underlying strata of coal was found to be burning, and notwithstanding continued efforts to put it out, continued to burn for more than a month. The defendant company was charged with negligence in permitting the escape of the gas, and in not exercising proper caution in the care and maintenance of the pipes at that locality. This action was brought to recover for the resulting damages. Upon the trial, it was not denied that the gas was escaping from the main, and it is here admitted that this fact was in itself prima facie evidence of negligence, which must be met and explained by the defendant, but it is contended that the evidence upon the part of the defendant did rebut the presumption of negligence raised by the plaintiff's evidence, by showing that the leakage was caused by the caving in of the abandoned coal mine.
The defendant's theory of the case was that in some way the old workings took fire, and the pillars of coal which had been left standing for the purpose of supporting the surface burned out. This view is thus stated in the printed brief. "The pillars in the mine burnt out, and let down the line, which broke, and the gas escaped."
The trial judge accepted this theory, and evidently regarded it as a satisfactory and sufficient explanation, and directed a verdict for the defendant. We find, however, from an examination of the evidence, that there was some testimony of similar trouble at that point some months before. People had been overcome by escaping gas, and the company, after searching, had found a break in the main, just across the street from plaintiff's property. The gas at that time had worked its way underground for a distance of about 125 feet, into the plaintiff's cellar. That was in February before the accident. One witness referring to the pipe testified that "it...
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