Webb v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal.
| Decision Date | 27 December 1957 |
| Citation | 319 P.2d 621,49 Cal.2d 509 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 1 A.F.T.R.2d 953, 58-1 USTC P 9360 Walter WEBB and Irma Webb et al., Respondents, v. STANDARD OIL COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA (a Corporation) et al., Appellants. Sac. 6821. |
Cooney & Littlejohn, Colusa, Devlin, Diepenbrock & Wulff, and J. V. Diepenbrock, Sacramento, for appellants.
Stanley J. Gale, Sacramento, and Richard Patton, Colusa, for plaintiffs and respondents.
Augustus Castro, Cooley, Crowley, Gaither, Godward, Castro & Huddleson, and Nicholas Zoller, San Francisco, for cross-complainants and respondents.
Mr. and Mrs. Webb brought this action to recover for damages sustained when their house was destroyed by a fire allegedly caused by the negligence of defendant Standard Oil Company and its agent, Floyd Wimberly, in installing propane gas cylinders. Two insurance companies, each of which had paid plaintiff $5,000 in accordance with the terms of fire insurance policies upon the real property destroyed, were joined as parties defendant, and they cross-complained against Standard and Wimberly. Judgment, rendered by the court sitting without a jury, was in favor of plaintiffs in the amount of $30,000 and in favor of the insurance companies in the amount of $5,000 each. Standard and Wimberly appeal, claiming that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment and that the court erred in failing to order plaintiffs to produce copies of their state and federal income tax returns.
The fire started in a completely enclosed washroom, nine feet long, which adjoined the kitchen. A gas refrigerator had been set in the wall between the kitchen and the washroom so that its door opened into the kitchen, and the back of the refrigerator extended through the wall into the washroom. The apparatus required to operate the refrigerator was located in the washroom and included a cabinet containing two cylinders, a pressure-reducing device called a regulator, and some tubing. An open burner in the refrigerator about nine inches from the floor constituted a source of ignition for escaping gas.
Sometime between six and eight o'clock on the evening before the fire, Wimberly delivered two Flamo cylinders of propane gas owned by Standard, connected them with the refrigerator, and turned on the gas. The refrigerator, had not been in use during the preceding year, and Mrs. Webb asked Wimberly to check the unit for leakage and told him that when the refrigerator had previously been in use, she could smell escaping gas. She suggested that he use soap to test the installation, but he said that he did not think this was necessary and instead passed three or four burning matches around the connections. He cleaned the burner of the refrigerator, tested its 'lock up' pressure, and lit the gas. Before Wimberly left, Mrs. Webb asked him to 'be sure and check everything again.' He opened the refrigerator door, looked inside and told her that everything was 'O.K.' Flamo cylinders are equipped with 'soft plugs' which may leak if damages in handling, but Wimberly did not test these plugs nor did he test the valves or regulator after he lit the burner.
Mrs. Webb, who was alone on the premises, did not re-enter the washroom after Wimberly left. She was awakened by a noise about 1:30 or 2:00 a. m. and went to the kitchen where she found that part of the wall between the kitchen and washroom had burned away, and she could see that there was a fire inside the washroom. The house was completely destroyed before help arrived.
A manual containing regulations promulgated by Standard, which Wimberly testified were good, sound safety practices, was introduced into evidence. These regulations required that tests to discover leakage of Flamo gas should be made with soap and not with matches and that under no circumstances should Flamo cylinders be installed in the interior of buildings. (Marketing Operating Manual, Standard Oil Company of California (1950).) There was testimony that the testing for leaks should have been made after the burner was lit and after the air in the lines had been bled off through the burner, and that a leak which a flame test would not disclose could be detected by a soap test. Propane gas is heavier than air and will settle as it escapes from a cylinder, and there was evidence that a small amount of gas in the air is sufficient to create an explosive mixture.
The court found that defendants were negligent in installing, testing and connecting the Flamo cylinders and that the negligence of defendants was the direct and proximate cause of the fire. The evidence is clearly sufficient to support these findings.
The principal question presented on this appeal is whether the court erred in refusing to order plaintiffs to produce copies of their state and federal income tax returns for the year of the fire. At the time defendants demanded the production of the returns they admitted that they did not know what the returns contained but asserted that they were entitled to inquire whether plaintiffs had...
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