Leahy v. Standard Oil Co. of New York

• Decision Date: 31 May 1916
• Parties: LEAHY v. STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW YORK.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

224 Mass. 352

112 N.E. 950

LEAHY

v.STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW YORK.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampshire.

May 31, 1916.

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Hampshire County.

Action by Timothy C. Leahy, administrator, against the Standard Oil Company of New York. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

John C. Hammond and Wm. J. Reilley, both of Northampton, for plaintiff.

Herbert Parker and Henry H. Fuller, both of Boston, for defendant.

LORING, J.

The facts shown at the trial of this case consequent upon the decision in Leahy v. Standard Oil Co., 220 Mass. 90, 107 N. E. 458, were in the main the same as those which appeared in evidence when the case was first tried. There were, however, one or two new matters in evidence at the second trial which should be stated. At the second trial it appeared that the cover of the pit was made of wood. That there was an automatic pump to pump the contents of the pit to a washing stand in the old garage from which the contents ‘flowed out upon the open floor and into a manhole connecting with the sewer’ f the city. The pipes of this pump went into the pit through holes in the wooden cover and the gasoline which was discharged by Morton on to the floor of the new boiler room found its way into the pit through these holes and through the edges of the wooden cover. This was possible because the pipes did not fully fill the holes in the wooden cover through which they entered the pit and the cover did not fit closely to the edges of the pit. This pump was not designed to pump the pit dry. When the liquid in the pit was reduced to a depth of seven inches the pump ceased to work. At the time that Sullivan ran the water out of the boiler there were or the jury were warranted in finding that there were about seven inches of gasoline in the pit and that this gasoline diluted with the water of the boiler ran out on the floor because the water of the boiler ran into the pit faster than the contents of the pit were pumped out by the pump. The gasoline and the water ‘overflowed the pit; it came out on the floor and covered it probably about quarter of an inch.’

Sullivan, the owner of the garage, testified that when he was told by Morton of the spilling of the gasoline in the addition then under construction, he went to it and found the doors nailed and locked and was told by Dunn, the head plumber, that ‘he couldn't go down there.’ In addition he testified that ‘he did not then learn about any disposition of the gasoline.’ Sullivan further testified that ‘he knew that the state inspector had gone over it’ (the addition) before he took possession on the first of February; that when he took possession on the first of February ‘there was no evidence of gasoline in the cellar,’ and the fires were going in the boiler; that ‘he went to the cellar on the first or second of February with Mr. Riley, the plumber.’ And that he did not know that the gasoline had been swept into the pit until the morning after the explosion.

Brandle, the owner of the addition, testified that the plumber told him that the gasoline which had been spilled in the addition had been cleaned up; that he was told that ‘the windows were open and it was all safe;’ that the plumbers had told him that ‘it (the gasoline) was all cleaned up.’

An expert testified that the gasoline in the pit could be made into a dangerous vapor by ‘its being heated’ as well as by its dilution by water flowing into the pit and, if the cover was off, by a current of air caused for example ‘by a person walking to and fro.’

At the close of the evidence the defendant asked the presiding judge to make thirty rulings of law, of which one was given and twenty-nine were refused. In addition to taking an exception to the refusal to give the rulings asked for, the defendant excepted to ‘the rule as laid down by the court with respect to the liability of the defendant in the event of the act, the latter act, of Sullivan.’

It is not necessary to decide what the rule of law is which would have governed this case if the jury had found Sullivan's intervening act to have been an innocent one. If, for example, Sullivan neither knew nor ought to have known of the presence of the gasoline in the pit, his act of emptying the boiler by running out the water on to the cellar floor would not have been a negligent act. The intervening act of a third person ‘is important, not qua cause, but qua wrongdoer.’ An innocent intervening act of a third person stands ‘on no different footing from the force of gravitation’ for example as Holmes, j., said in another connection in Hayes v. Hyde Park, 153 Mass. 514, 516, 27 N. E. 522, 523 (12 L. R. A. 249). But it was pointed out in that opinion that there was no question of remoteness in that case.

The ruling complained of in the case at bar dealt with the rule of law governing this case if the jury found Sullivan's act was a negligent act.

When this case was before us before (Leahy v. Standard Oil Co., 220 Mass. 90, 107 N. E. 458), it was decided that the rule acted upon in Burke v. Hodge, 217 Mass. 182, 104 N. E. 450, was the rule applicable here if Sullivan's act was a negligent one. The learned counsel for the defendant has contended that the rule which governs this case in the event that Sullivan's act was a negligent one is that laid down in Lane v. Atlantic Works, 111 Mass. 136, and under that rule no case for the jury was made out here. The short answer to that contention is that the rule acted upon in Burke v. Hodge is quite different from that laid down in Lane v. Atlantic Works, and that it was decided when the case was here before that the rule of Burke v. Hodge was the rule governing this case.

In a case where there is an intervening negligent act of a third person we have a case where ‘there is more obscurity than there ought to be, perhaps, upon the limits of liability in general,’ as was said in Glynn v. Central R. R., 175 Mass. 510, 511, 56 N. E. 698,78 Am. St. Rep. 507. We think it better to make a more full answer to the contention than the short one stated above.

Cases like Lane v. Atlantic Works, are to be distinguished from cases like Scott v. Sheperd, 2 W. Bl. 892, and Ogden v. Aspinwall, 220 Mass. 100, 107 N. E. 448, where the intervening act is an involuntary one. In cases like Lane v. Atlantic Works (where the occasion of the injury suffered by the plaintiff is an intervening wrongful act) the intervening act is an independent act of volition on the part of a third person. It is with an intervening act of that kind that we have to deal here.

The rule laid down in Lane v. Atlantic Works is stated in these terms:

‘In actions of this description, the defendant is liable for the natural and probable consequences of his negligent act or omission. The injury must be the direct result of the misconduct charged; but it will not be considered too remote if, according to the usual experience of mankind, the result ought to have been apprehended. The act of a third person, intervening and contributing a condition necessary to the injurious effect of the original negligence, will not excuse the first wrongdoer, if such act ought to have been foreseen. The original negligence still remains a culpable and direct cause of the injury. The test is to be found in the probable injurious consequences which were to be anticipated, not in the number of subsequent events and agencies which might arise.’

This rule has since been acted upon in numerous cases. In the following cases it was held that a case for the jury had been made out under this rule. Elmer v. Locke, 135 Mass. 575;Koplan v. Boston Gaslight Co., 177 Mass. 15, 58 N. E. 183;Murray v. Boston Ice Co., 180 Mass. 165, 61 N. E. 1001;Turner v. Page, 186 Mass. 600,172 N. E. 329;Oulighan v. Butler, 189 Mass. 287, 75 N. E. 726;Flynn v. Butler, 189 Mass. 377, 75 N. E. 730;Butler v. New England Structural Co., 191 Mass. 397, 77 N. E. 764;Ladd v. N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., 193 Mass. 359, 79 N. E. 742,9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 874,9 Ann. Cas. 988;Toohy v. McLean, 199 Mass. 466, 85 N. E. 578;Mullen v. Zides, 216 Mass. 202, 103 N. E. 635;Sousa v. Irome, 219 Mass. 273, 106 N. E. 998;Norton v. Chandler, 221 Mass. 99, 108 N. E. 897.

The rule acted upon in Burke v. Hodge is stated in these terms:

‘The instructions given to the jury required them, in order to answer the issue affirmatively, to find that this negligence of the defendants was the sole efficient cause of the accident. The judge said that the question was whether this was the real cause, the compelling cause, of the accident. He told the jury that the answer to the issue should be ‘No,’ if there was intervening negligence of McArthur Brothers without which the wall would not have fallen. And after his charge had been finished, when his attention was called to this matter, he further said to the jury: ‘You must find that the wall fell because of the negligent mixing and (that) it would have fallen as and when it did if the braces, the forms, had not been removed.’ This was too stringent a rule. It was enough for the plaintiffs to show that the falling of the wall was due to the combined effect of the negligence of the defendants in mixing the concrete and of that of McArthur Brothers in removing the forms. Feneff v. B. & M. R. R., 196 Mass. 575, 580, et seq. ;Bagley v. Wonderland Co., 205 Mass. 238, 245, 246 ;D'Almeida v. B. & M. R. R., 209 Mass. 81, 87 [95 N. E. 398, Ann. Cas. 1913C, 751];Hunt v. N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., 212 Mass. 102, 107, 108 [98 N. E. 787,40 L. R. A. (N. S) 778];Brown v. Thayer, 212 Mass. 392, 397 ;Dickey v. Willis, 215 Mass. 292, 293 . The plaintiff was entitled to have the issue found in his favor and to hold the defendants, although the accident would not have happened without the negligence of McArthur Brothers, if it also appeared that it would not have happened but for the negligence of the defendants which has been stated and that...