Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Co. v. Allstate Const., Inc.
Decision Date | 27 February 1962 |
Docket Number | No. 6989,TEXAS-NEW,6989 |
Citation | 70 N.M. 15,369 P.2d 401,1962 NMSC 26 |
Parties | MEXICO PIPELINE COMPANY, a corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ALLSTATE CONSTRUCTION, INC., Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Neal & Neal, Hobbs, for appellant.
Hervey, Dow & Hinkle, Howard C. Bratton and Conrad E. Coffield, Roswell, for appellee.
The plaintiff seeks damages resulting from trespass allegedly committed by defendant in severing plaintiff's pipeline. Judgment was entered for plaintiff and defendant appeals.
Appellant, a contractor, was employed by Cities Service Oil Company to construct a pad for the purpose of drilling an oil well. In preparing the pad, defendant's bulldozer struck and damaged an underground pipeline belonging to plaintiff. Cities Service Oil Company had a valid oil and gas lease on the federal lands in Lea County on which the pad was being constructed. More than 20 years earlier, the plaintiff had obtained a valid easement across these lands and had installed an oil transmission pipeline. There was no visible evidence of the pipeline and defendant had no actual knowledge of its existence. There is no question but that both parties were lawfully upon the land.
The judgment was based upon the theory that defendant was absolutely liable for damage inflicted by it to the pipeline regardless of negligence, by reason of a trespass to chattels. The trial court concluded:
This appeal presents the narrow issue whether an unintentional non-negligent interference with the chattels of another is actionable. Under the facts, we think it is not. The question has not heretofore been considered in this jurisdiction.
Trespass to personalty is the intentional use or interference with a chattel which is in the possession of another, without justification. Restatement, Law of Torts, Sec. 218; Prosser, Torts, Sec. 14, p. 64; 1 Harper and James, Torts, Sec. 2.5, pp. 109, 110.
Plaintiff contends, and the effect of the trial court's conclusion is, that it was not necessary that defendant intended to strike or in any manner interfere with the underground pipeline, but that it was sufficient to establish liability if defendant intentionally used the bulldozer where it did and struck the pipeline with the resulting damage.
The act must have been more than voluntary--it must have been an intentional act except where negligence is present. The intention required to make one liable for trespass to a chattel is that he must have acted for the purpose of interfering with the chattel or with knowledge that a disturbance thereof is substantially certain to occur. Restatement, Torts, Sec. 218, Comment (a), p. 556; 1 Harper & James, Torts, supra. There is neither proof nor any finding by the court that appellant had any knowledge of the existence of the pipeline, nor is he chargeable with such knowledge under any facts here present. Absent an intentional act done for the purpose of interfering with the chattel or with knowledge that his act was reasonably certain to result in an interference with it, there is no liability for trespass to a chattel. Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Company v. Kelton, 79 Ariz. 126, 285 P.2d 168; Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., Inc. v. Bailey, 202 Misc. 364, 109 N.Y.S.2d 799; 1 Harper & James, Torts, supra. Illinois Bell Telephone Co. v. Charles Ind. Co., 3 Ill.App.2d 258, 121 N.E.2d 600, relied upon by appellee contains an excellent discussion of some of the cases involving trespass to utility lines in public streets, but can be distinguished from the instant case by the...
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