Veal v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 28 May 1970
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 898
• Parties: Quinton VEAL v. Edwin F. PHILLIPS, d/b/a Phillips Oil Company and Shell Oil Company.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 799

235 So.2d 799

285 Ala. 655

Quinton VEAL v. Edwin F. PHILLIPS, d/b/a Phillips Oil Company and Shell Oil Company.

5 Div. 898.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

May 28, 1970.

Walker, Hill & Gullage, and Phillip E. Adams, Jr., Opelika, for appellant.

Miller & Hoffmann, Montgomery, for Edwin F. Phillips, d/b/a Phillips oil co.

Samford, Torbert, Denson & Horsley, Spelika, for Shell Oil Co.

MADDOX, Justice.

This appeal is from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Lee County, at law, granting a nonsuit to the appellant because of the adverse rulings of the court in sustaining the demurrers of both defendants to the appellant's complaint as last amended.

This was a suit brought by appellant, Quinton Veal, plaintiff below, to recover damages for personal injuries incurred by him while he was working for the appellees as an independent contractor on property owned and controlled by the appellees, defendants below.

Appellants assign several errors on appeal but argue only the action of the trial court in sustaining demurrers filed by both defendants to Count 3 of the amended complaint.

The decision must turn on the pleading question presented. Therefore, we set out here the allegations of Count 3 of the amended complaint:

'The Plaintiff, Quinton Veal, claims of the Defendants, Edwin F. Phillips, doing business as Phillips Oil Co., and Shell Oil Co., a corporation, the sum of Fifty Thousand and no/100ths ($50,000.) as damages for that on to wit, the 20th day of June, 1967, for an agreed valuable consideration the Plaintiff undertook to paint, for the mutual benefit of the Defendants and at the Defendants' request, a large upright cylindrical metal storage tank at the Shell Oil Bulk storage plant located at the premises known as 1425 First Avenue, in the City of Opelika, Lee County, Alabama, which undertaking included the scraping of said storage tank, the removal of old paint therefrom, the application of priming material, and the repainting of said storage tank, and on said date the Plaintiff commenced said work which required his standing upon a tall ladder or ladders to reach the upper portion of said storage tank; at said time said Defendants were in charge of said premises where the Plaintiff was required to perform his said work, and on said occasion said Defendants negligently caused or allowed said premises to be an unsafe place and to be in an inherently and highly dangerous condition for the Plaintiff to perform said work on said storage tank In that the exterior surface of said metal storage tank which was cylindrical in design was slick and slippery and in that the ground beneath and adjacent to said storage tank was strewn or littered with sharp or pointed pieces of metal or scrap iron, and the Plaintiff was unaware of said unsafe place and said inherently and highly dangerous condition; and on said occasion, while the Plaintiff was standing on a tall ladder or ladders undertaking said work on the upper portion of said storage tank, and as a proximate result of said slick or slippery surface of said storage tank, said ladder or ladders on which the Plaintiff was then standing as aforesaid were caused to slip, thereby causing the Plaintiff to fall to the ground, and as a further proximate result of the negligence of the Defendants as aforesaid, the Plaintiff was caused to sustain and he did sustain the following injuries and damages: (here the injuries were set out) * * *. And the Plaintiff further avers that all of his said injuries and damages were caused as a proximate consequence of the negligence of the Defendants in negligently causing or allowing said premises to be an unsafe place and to be in an inherently and highly dangerous condition for the Plaintiff to perform said work on said occasion, as aforesaid.'

(Emphasis added) (Parenthesis added)

We will not set out the specific grounds of demurrer, but each defendant raised by demurrer (1) that the complaint failed to show that defendants owed any duty to the plaintiff; (2) that defendants breached this duty; (3) that the...