Jennings v. Standard Oil Co. Of N.J.

• Decision Date: 21 March 1934
• Docket Number: No. 20.,20.
• Citation: 173 S.E. 582,206 N.C. 261
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: JENNINGS. v. STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW JERSEY et al

173 S.E. 582

206 N.C. 261

JENNINGS.

v.STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW JERSEY et al

No. 20.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

March 21, 1934.

.

Appeal from Superior Court, Pasquotank County; Cowper, Special Judge.

Action by W. F. Jennings against the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and S. W. Twiford, trading as the Quinn Furniture Company. From a judgment of nonsuit at close of plaintiff's evidence, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

The defendant Twiford, trading as Quinn Furniture Company, is a merchant and is a distributor for a certain type of stove known as the Superfex oil burning heater, and certain of these stoves were installed in his store in Elizabeth City in the winter of 1931. The stove was heated by means of oil, which is sometimes called fuel oil or heating oil. The oil was furnished the defendant Twiford by the defendant, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. The plaintiff said: "I worked for the Quinn Company around seven years. I was not working for them at the time of my injury, as I had stopped about a month and a half prior to that. At the time of my services with them I usually lighted the Superfex Oil Burning Heater. * * * When the fire is out we generally turn the valve down and wait about a minute and light a match and throw it in. The oil is kept in a container back of the stove and runs down in the stove in the pan and that is lighted with a piece of paper or a match. The oil got down from the tank to the pan from a tube about one-fourth inch in diameter, and I opened a valve to cause the oil to run from the tank to a pan which would take about a minute. A lighted match or a piece of burning paper was then thrown into the stove through an opening in the front. * * * On the morning I was hurt I went down to the store with Mr. Hales in his car. * * * About a minute after I got there I saw Mr. Davis, the head clerk. * * * The stove was not burning that morning when I went in but was cold. * * * Mr. Davis went somewhere * * * and he came back and told me to light the stove and don't catch the cap. To strike a lighted match and put it in there, but not to catch the cap. There was but one cap on the stove. I then attempted to do what he told me. I lighted the match and threw it in there and started to put back the cap with my right hand, but I never did get it in the hole. It caught up and blew out before I could get the cap in the hole. When I threw that lighted match in, the oil blew up and blew out. I mean the oil exploded. It blew out, blew the pipe out and hit me all over, and I was in a burning place in the store about eight feet square. It just seemed to flash when the lighted match struck the oil. It just blew out. The flame struck me right in the face and went all over me and laid me out and blew me down. * * * They hadused the Superfex Oil Burner just a month or...