Hurst v. Gulf Oil Corporation, 16496.

• Decision Date: 24 January 1958
• Docket Number: No. 16496.,16496.
• Citation: 251 F.2d 836
• Parties: Glenn Hubbard HURST and Employers Casualty Company, Intervener, Appellants, v. GULF OIL CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

251 F.2d 836 (1958)

Glenn Hubbard HURST and Employers Casualty Company, Intervener, Appellants, v. GULF OIL CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 16496.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

January 24, 1958.

John J. Watts, Odessa, Tex., for appellants.

William L. Kerr, Max N. Osborn, Midland, Tex., for Gulf Oil Corp., Turpin, Kerr & Smith, Midland, Tex., of counsel.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and RIVES and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.

RIVES, Circuit Judge.

This case and the Sword case¹ were heard successively (though in reverse order) in the district court and in this Court; and, under the facts and circumstances of the particular case, present the same question for decision, viz.: whether a jury could properly hold the employer of an independent contractor liable for injury to an employee of that contractor.

In this case also, Gulf was the owner of an oil and gas lease covering "flat, bald prairie." It contracted with Southeastern Drilling Company for the drilling and completion of a well for oil and gas. The contract was on the same printed form as that referred to in the Sword case, supra, and some pertinent provisions of which were quoted in footnote 1 to the opinion in that case. A further provision may be noted in the margin.² The contract further provided that the contractor was to furnish the "swabbing equipment, including swabbing unit, swabbing line and swab."

The well had been drilled to its required depth of 9,600 feet, and was being swabbed in an effort to bring about the production of gas or oil. The contractor first employed a separate swabbing contractor to do the swabbing work, but took over the work itself when it became evident that it might have to continue for an indefinite period of time. The swabbing operation by the contractor had been going on for about eight days when the swabbing line broke. At the time of the break, the contractor's employee, Hurst, at the direction of his driller, was spooling the swabbing line. The unit was pulling on the swab which was about 9,400 feet in the hole. It had pulled it "approximately four or five hundred foot of stretch before the line broke." A part of the line struck Mr. Hurst and he was severly injured.

Negligence on the part of Gulf was charged: in failing to provide a safe place to work, in failing to provide proper supervision of the work; in permitting the contractor to use a defective swabbing line, a drum which was too small, a sheave which was too small, a groove in the sheave which was too large, or to hang the sheave improperly, or otherwise negligently to install the apparatus. No Gulf equipment was involved. No Gulf representative had attempted to direct the performance of the work. No Gulf employee was present when Hurst was injured.

Glenn Stach, Gulf's drilling foreman, was its representative at this well. He knew that the swabbing line, which was new, had developed a kink and that that had been corrected by splicing the line. The line did not break in the splice or anywhere near it, and the splicing of the line had nothing to do with the accident. If Stach, as Gulf's representative, had been charged with any duty of supervision owed to the contractor's employees, he might have discovered that the drum was too small, the sheave too small, the groove in the sheave too large, and the apparatus improperly installed, — all tending to cause unnecessary bending and fatigue of the 5/8 inch steel swabbing line and probably resulting in its finally breaking; or, if he had not been absent from the well at the time, he might have seen that Hurst, an eighteen year old employee of the contractor, was working in a dangerous place. Actually, neither Gulf, nor its representative...