91 So. 406 | La. | 1922
- By Division A, composed of Chief Justice PROVOSTY and Justices OVERTON and LECHE.
The workman of the-defendant company, in making the gas connection with an apartment, failed to notice that the gas outlet in the kitchen was open. The escaping gas filled the apartment, and
The plaintiffs and Mr. and Mrs. Sicard had lgased the apartment and moved into it some four months previously, and the gas connection was being made at their reguest.
The gas outlet in the kitchen had been left open, or uncapped, by the workmen of the defendant company when they had disconnected the stove of the former tenants, some five months previously.
The workman testified that he looked for the fixtures and went into the kitchen and looked around for a gas stove outlet, and found none, and that he asked the nurse, and also Mrs. Sicard, the only one of the tenants present, where their gas stove was, and was told by them that they did not have any.
Mrs. Sicard testified that the workman had made no investigation, and that whether he inquired or not about a stove in the kitchen she did not remember.
The workman left as soon as he had completed his job, and Mrs. Sicard, who had come from -her place of employment merely to be present while the workman would be in the apartment, left also. Before leaving, she noticed the ,gas odor, and inquired of the workman about it. He reassured her, explaining that it came from a pipe he had opened. She had requested him to light one of the radiators, and he, experiencing some difficulty in getting the gas to ignite, and attributing the trouble to the presence of air in the pipe, had momentarily opened the pipe to let out the air.
This kitchen outlet consisted of a three-quarter inch pipe, protruding some nine inches out of the wall six or eight inches above the floor, with an elbow in it turned downward. It was in a corner, between a kitchen cabinet and the wall which cornered with the wall out of which it came, and therefore was an inconspicuous object, not easily seen by any one not particularly looking for it. Mr. Sicard, husband of Mrs. Sic-ard, had seen it a.t the time of moving into the apartment, but had paid no attention to it, and had not observed that it was uncapped. Mrs. Sicard did not remember whether she had ever seen it before the day of the fatal occurrence.
The owner of the apartment was in no way negligent, since the piping of the house was in good order, save for the act of the defendant company in having left this outlet open.
Mrs. Sicard was entirely justified in being satisfied with the assurance given her by the workman as to the source of the gas odor. And we think the same of Mrs. Hebert, the plaintiff, having been in like manner satisfied when she came to the apartment a while after the workman had left
Defendant charges contributory negligence in that the negro girl should have noticed the increasing intensity of the gas in the apartment and opened the windows.
The evidence shows that -the action of gas in such cases is insidious, so that the victim is insensibly overcome. Moreover the day being cold, the girl had been enjoined to keep the windows closed. The very purpose of making the gas connection was to bring the heating apparatus into service.
Counsel for defendant argue that a gas company, when called upon for a gas connection, is not required to ascertain whether the piping in the house is in good condition, but has the right to assume that it is; that the owner of the house, or, vicariously, the tenant applying for the gas connection, has seen to that.