Kanola Corp. v. Palmer
| Decision Date | 06 February 1934 |
| Docket Number | Case Number: 21764 |
| Citation | 30 P.2d 189,167 Okla. 430,1934 OK 61 |
| Parties | KANOLA CORPORATION et al. v. PALMER et al. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
¶0 1. Torts--Joint Liability of Tort-Feasors.
To make tort-feasors jointly liable there must be some sort of community in the wrongdoing, and the injury must be in some way due to their joint work, but it is not necessary that they be acting together or in concert if their concurring wrongful acts occasion the injury.
2. Same--Sufficiency of Plaintiff's Evidence to Take Question to Jury.
If the evidence is such that from the facts and circumstances in evidence the jury may reasonably infer or conclude therefrom that the concurring acts of two alleged tort-feasors occasioned the injury complained of, it is sufficient to take the question to the jury as to whether or not the concurring wrongful acts of the two defendants caused the injury.
3. Waters and Water Courses--Liability or Operator of Oil Well to Owner of Grazing Lease for Injury to Stock From Pollution of Stock Waters Caused by Salt Water Escaping From Oil Well.
Where the owner of an oil and gas lease operates an oil well thereon so as to permit salt water to escape and flow over the surface of land owned by a person other than the owner of the land upon which the oil well is located, in violation of section 7969, C. O. S. 1921, so as to pollute the stock water supply thereon, he is liable to the sublessee of the owners of both tracts of land for injury to his stock occasioned thereby.
Appeal from District Court, Okfuskee County; John L. Norman, Judge.
Action by S. T. Palmer and another against the Kanola Corporation and another. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.
Alvin Richards, F. A. Calvert, McCrory & Monk, and John Alsop, for plaintiffs in error.
Leon C. Phillips, for defendants in error.
¶1 This is an action commenced by defendants in error against Kanola Corporation and the Pure Oil Company, plaintiffs in error, to recover damages alleged to have been caused by the pollution of the stock water supply in a large pasture containing some four sections of land of which plaintiffs were the lessees, except as to 160 acres thereof which they owned in fee. The action was against defendants jointly, and the pollution was alleged to have been caused by casting salt water upon the surface of the land which poisoned certain cattle belonging to plaintiffs and being pastured on said lands.
¶2 It was alleged, and it was stipulated at the trial, that defendants were owners of separate oil and gas leases covering 80 acres, each lying within said large pasture. Plaintiffs further alleged that defendants jointly constructed a dam across the natural drainage from their leases, and thereby emptied salt water and other refuse of their respective leases into the water on the land owned and leased by plaintiffs, thus polluting the stock water supply, by which plaintiffs' cattle were poisoned, causing the death of some of them and injury to others, all to the damage of plaintiffs in the sum of $ 950. Defendant Kanola Oil Company answered by general denial. Defendant Pure Oil Company answered by general denial, and also alleged that it had been operating its lease and producing oil therefrom for a long period of time, and that it had operated same in a diligent, careful, and skillful manner, and had taken all the precautions common to the oil industry to prevent the discharge of oil, salt water, and other refuse upon the surface of the land and had operated its lease in the best known, modern, approved methods and had not been guilty of negligence, carelessness, and had not violated any law.
¶3 The cause was tried to a jury, resulting in a judgment for plaintiffs against both defendants in the sum of $ 775, and defendants appeal.
¶4 At the trial, plaintiffs wholly failed to prove their allegations that defendants had jointly constructed a dam against the natural drainage on their leases, and thereby cast the salt water upon plaintiffs' land. It appears that the lease of the Pure Oil Company was on the west half of the N.E. 1/4, and the Kanola lease on the east half of the N.E. 1/4 of section 26, and the pasture in which plaintiffs' cattle grazed included all of section 26, together with sections 23, 24, and 25.
¶5 The well or wells from which salt water was produced by the Kanola Corporation were so situated that such water could be drained either to the north or to the southwest. Originally the drainage had been to the north, but some years prior to 1929, that being the year the damage claimed for was alleged to have been sustained, the Kanola Company had changed its drainage to the southwest in order to prevent salt water from flowing into the watershed of the Okmulgee municipal water supply. The drainage from the Pure Oil Company well had always been to the southwest. The drainage from the wells of the two defendant companies, after the change by the Kanola Company, was down and along separate draws or depressions, one running southwest from the Kanola well and one running south and a little west from the Pure Oil Company well, a distance of a little over one-fourth of a mile, where they converged, forming a common draw or drain on the northwest quarter of section 26. This common draw in turn drains into a larger draw running southeast across the southwest quarter of section 26, and out of the pasture.
¶6 It is first contended that because of these separate and distinct draws or drains, and because of the absence of positive evidence showing that any of the cattle drank salt water from the drains below where they came together, the joint judgment cannot be sustained. In support of this contention, defendants assert that there is no evidence disclosing defendants jointly contributed to the loss complained of by plaintiffs. It is true that there is no direct evidence that any of plaintiffs' cattle drank water from the "common draw," that is, from the draw or drain below where the separate drains from defendants' well converged. There is no direct evidence that more than one of plaintiffs' cattle was ever seen drinking from either of the separate drains leading from said wells.
¶7 In Tidal Oil Co. v. Pease, 153 Okla. 137, 5 P.2d 389, it is held:
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...of Oklahoma and Kansas (see Northup v. Eakes, 72 Okl. 66, 178 P. 266; Tidal Oil Co. v. Pease, 153 Okl. 137, 5 P.2d 389; Kanola Corp. v. Palmer, 167 Okl. 430, 30 P.2d 189; Prairie Oil & Gas Co. v. Laskey, 173 Okl. 48, 46 P.2d 484; Arnold v. C. Hoffman & Son Milling Co., 86 Kan. 12, 119 P. 37......
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