Triplett v. Alabama Power Co.

• Citation: 213 Ala. 190,104 So. 248
• Decision Date: 09 April 1925
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 533
• Parties: TRIPLETT v. ALABAMA POWER CO.
• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama

104 So. 248

213 Ala. 190

TRIPLETT v. ALABAMA POWER CO.

7 Div. 533

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 9, 1925

Rehearing Denied May 21, 1925

Appeal from Circuit Court, Calhoun County; S.W. Tate, Judge.

Action for damages by J.D. Triplett against the Alabama Power Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Rutherford Lapsley, of Anniston, for appellant.

Knox Acker, Sterne & Liles, of Anniston, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

Plaintiff who appeals, claimed to have suffered injury, to have been temporarily asphyxiated with resulting injuries of a more permanent character, by the escape of carbon monoxide gas from a so-called instantaneous heater in his bathroom. There was no evidence that the gas furnished by defendant was negligently or unscientifically constituted as to its chemical elements, no evidence of negligence or irregularity in the pressure which carried it into plaintiff's bathroom. Responsibility is sought to be fastened on defendant by reason of the fact that its employee, sent to make a connection between defendant's main or service pipe and plaintiff's heater--including the pipe in plaintiff's house--after the connection had been made and after lighting the gas and turning on the water, said to plaintiff, "It is all right, go ahead and use it" or rather, to state the case with more accurate reference to the record, plaintiff offered to show by himself and another witness that defendant's employee, on the occasion and in the circumstances mentioned, some weeks prior to plaintiff's alleged injury, used language of that import in speaking to plaintiff. The trial court refused to hear the evidence as to what defendant's employee said to plaintiff, and in the end gave the general affirmative charge on defendant's request.

Plaintiff's misfortune is attributed by him to the alleged fact that by reason of some defect in the heater--probably the lack of a proper vent leading to the outer air--poisonous products of imperfect combustion, or maybe parts of the gas supplied, escaped into the bathroom with consequences of which he complains.

Evidence introduced by plaintiff, and not contradicted, went to show that, prior to the time of plaintiff's injury, the heater and its connections within the house had been installed by a contractor with whom defendant had no connection whatever. Defendant's business upon the premises was to make a connection between the heater (and its pipe) and its own main, or service pipe leading out to its main, so that plaintiff's heater might be supplied with gas. Defendant's...