Venzel v. Valley Camp Coal Co

• Decision Date: 27 June 1931
• Docket Number: 21
• Citation: 156 A. 240,304 Pa. 583
• Parties: Venzel, Appellant, v. Valley Camp Coal Co
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

156 A. 240

304 Pa. 583

Venzel, Appellant, v. Valley Camp Coal Co

No. 21

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

June 27, 1931

Argued March 18, 1931

Appeal, No. 21, March T., 1931, by plaintiff, from judgment of C.P. Allegheny Co., July T., 1928, No. 148, on verdict for defendant, in case of Annie E. Venzel v. Valley Camp Coal Company. Affirmed.

Trespass for death of plaintiff's husband. Before MACFARLANE, J.

The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.

Verdict and judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appealed.

Errors assigned were various instructions, quoting record.

Judgment affirmed.

W Clyde Grubbs, with him Thomas M. Marshall, for appellant. -- The electricians, the operators of the cutting machine and the defendant would be liable for what might in the nature of things occur in consequence of the negligence that resulted from the operation of the cutting machine without a guard: Bunting v. Hogsett, 139 Pa. 363; Gudfelder v. Ry. Co., 207 Pa. 629; Jones v. American Caramel Co., 225 Pa. 644; O'Malley v. Transit Co., 248 Pa. 292; Jaras v. Wright, 263 Pa. 486.

The defendant is not to be excused from the violation of a statute because he did not know that there was gas in the entry: Jones v. Caramel Co., 225 Pa. 644; Walcofski v. Coal Co., 278 Pa. 84; Bayuk Bros. v. Martin Wilson Co., 81 Pa.Super. 195.

The presence of noxious gases in the Boyd Mine was not the cause of the death of Louis Venzel: Corbin v. Phila., 195 Pa. 461; Hydraulic Works Co. v. Orr, 83 Pa. 332; Schilling v. Abernethy, 112 Pa. 437; Murray v. Frick, 277 Pa. 190; Fitzpatrick v. Penfield, 267 Pa. 564; Shirey v. Gas Co., 215 Pa. 399; Koelsch v. Phila. Co., 152 Pa. 355; Heh v. Gas Co., 201 Pa. 443; Bardsley v. Gill, 218 Pa. 56; Fredericks v. Refining Co., 282 Pa. 8.

Albert C. Hirsch, with him John M. Freeman, of Watson & Freeman, and Cresswell S. Shumaker, for appellee. -- Conditions in the Boyd Mine, over which defendant had no control, were the cause of Venzel's death. Inasmuch as plaintiff failed to eliminate such possible causes, the court below should have directed a verdict for the defendant: Sullivan v. B. & O.R.R., 272 Pa. 429; Cain v. Booth & Flinn, 294 Pa. 334; Zeher v. Pittsburgh, 279 Pa. 168; Cawley v. R.R., 44 Pa.Super. 340.

Plaintiff failed to show that the explosion in Kinloch Mine was caused by defendant's negligence; in fact, failed to show what caused the explosion.

On the contrary, the undisputed testimony shows the explosion could not have originated as claimed by plaintiff.

Defendant was not bound to foresee the remote possibility that carbon monoxide might escape from the Kinloch Mine, spread throughout the intervening Valley Camp Mine and enter the Boyd Mine, and therefore was not under a duty to notify the Boyd Mines of danger unforeseeable by the defendant: Rugart v. Baking Co., 277 Pa. 408; Kosson v. Power Co., 293 Pa. 131; Hoag v. R.R., 85 Pa. 293; Fitzpatrick v. Penfield, 267 Pa. 564.

Before FRAZER, C.J., WALLING, SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER and MAXEY, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE KEPHART:

This was an action of trespass brought by a widow to recover damages for the death of her husband who was found dead in the mine of his employer on the morning after a disastrous explosion in an adjoining mine owned by defendant.

Three mines under two different ownerships are involved in this controversy. Defendant, Valley Camp Coal Company, owned two, named Kinloch and Valley Camp. The latter was located directly north of the Kinloch Mine and was separated from it by a wall of coal; at one point in this wall where there had formerly been an open passageway, it was barred by double doors each two inches thick. The Boyd Mine, under another ownership, was located just north of the Valley Camp Mine, and communicated with it through an opening made by the Boyd owners with the consent of the Valley Camp owners for drainage purposes.

The Kinloch Mine was ventilated by a fan which forced air into the mine at the rate of 160,000 cubic feet per minute, most of which traveled northward toward Valley Camp where it was deflected and returned in a parallel course, turning and coming out through the slope along which coal was conveyed to the surface. The Valley Camp Mine was ventilated by a fan, located on its western boundary, having a capacity of 110,000 cubic feet per minute. It drew air through openings on its north boundary and through the opening made by the Boyd Mine owners in their mine. The air coming in at these points continued along the eastern side of Valley Camp, then along the boundary between Valley Camp and Kinloch, and then to the fan. There was no artificial ventilation in the Boyd Mine and its air was kept pure chiefly by the fan of the Valley Camp Company used to ventilate the Valley Camp Mine.

About 9:30 p.m. of the night of February 20, 1928, an explosion occurred in the Kinloch Mine. It was charged that defendant's servants took a cutting machine, improperly guarded against electric sparks, into a portion of the Kinloch Mine where a quantity of gas had accumulated, and that, while the motor was in use, the explosion took place, demolishing the double doors between the Kinloch and Valley Camp Mines and permitting dangerous gases to pass through to the Boyd Mine. The morning following the explosion, Venzel, plaintiff's husband, entered the Boyd Mine and was later found dead there.

His death was due either to carbon monoxide gas, generated by the explosion, traveling a distance of three miles by the shortest air course to the point where his body was found, or to the fact that the ventilation of the Boyd Mine ceased when a short circuit was created in the ventilation of the Valley Camp Mine by the destruction of the double doors. The ventilating fans were kept in operation after the explosion, but the fact that the doors were down and that the air currents in the ventilating system had been reversed by the explosion was not discovered until the evening after the explosion. Deceased's widow brought an action to recover damages from the Valley Camp Coal Company for the loss of her husband. The jury found against her claim and the court in banc sustained its verdict. This appeal by the widow followed.

The owners of the Boyd Mine were under a duty to provide a safe place for their servants to work. This duty was as broad as the circumstances surrounding the work demanded. This duty has found expression in the several acts of assembly relating to mining coal. It was the nondelegable duty of such owners to provide a ventilating system and, if necessary, such other safeguards as would protect their employees from gases and other noxious substances on or likely to come on the premises. If they failed in this duty, they were responsible for any resulting injury. In this case, liability for such failure has been placed on decedent's employers and met through compensation now being paid to the widow under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Notwithstanding any neglect of duty in this respect, the question on which this appeal is predicated is the liability of the owners of the adjoining mine for the accident. There is no absolute liability on such owners. They were making a natural and normal use of their property in removing coal, and the highly dangerous gas which came from the adjoining strata of clay was merely incidental to a natural and normal use of their property. This case is unlike Rylands v. Fletcher, L.R. 3 H.L. 330, where a dam was constructed to store water. In that case, substances which proved to be of a dangerous nature were artificially collected on the land, and the House of Lords held that an owner collected such substances at his peril and was liable for the consequences when they escaped and did injury to another. But here the gas accumulated through a normal and natural use of the property, since mining is the natural use of coal land, even when done by machinery, and ordinarily no adjoining owner can complain when the mining is done in a careful and proper manner. To sustain a claim for damages resulting from mining, it is necessary to show that it was done negligently with respect to the party injured.

Where dangerous gases accumulate on a property from its lawful use in mining coal, and where it is reasonably foreseeable that such gas may escape and injure persons on adjoining property there is an affirmative duty on the owner to prevent, if possible, the escape of such gases to his neighbor's property. We have so held with...