85 S.W.2d 829 | Tex. App. | 1935
This suit was instituted by appellee, Magnolia Pipe Line Company, a corporation, against appellant, Shell Petroleum Corporation, to recover damages for the breaking of appellee's pipe line alleged to have resulted from the negligence of appellant, its servants and employees. The damages claimed were the cost of repairing the broken line and the value of the crude oil lost. Appellant alleged that it held a valid oil and gas lease on the land across which appellee's pipe line was laid and maintained, and that it was in lawful possession of the premises thereunder, and charged appellee with various acts and omissions which it alleged caused or contributed to the breaking of the pipe line and the loss of oil therefrom. Appellant also filed a cross-action against H. E. McClelland, B. S. Bell, D.C. Gallentine, and L. L. Arnold, in which it is alleged that each of said parties was present and participated in the transaction complained of by appellee; that while denying that said parties, or any of them, were negligent, it impleaded them to recover indemnity or contribution from them to the extent of appellee's recovery against it in event it should be found that they were in fact negligent.
The case was submitted to the jury on thirty-eight special issues, in response to each of which the jury made a separate finding. Such findings, so far as material to the issues of law hereinafter discussed, were in substance as follows:
(1) The Shell Petroleum Corporation, its servants and employees, broke Magnolia Pipe Line Company's six-inch pipe line on *831 or about 11 o'clock p. m., January 25, 1932, while moving its truck and trailer onto and across said line.
(2) The act of the Shell Petroleum Corporation, its servants and employees, in moving or pulling its truck and trailer onto and across such pipe line, was, under the circumstances, negligence.
(3) Such negligence was the proximate cause of the break in the line, and
(4) The proximate cause of the loss of crude oil.
(31) H. E. McClelland (in charge of the truck men) at the time and upon the occasion in question, prior to the breaking of the pipe line, knew of its existence.
The other findings of the jury were consistent with the findings here recited and supported the judgment rendered by the court that appellee recover of appellant the sum of $3,227.50, $115 thereof being the amount expended in repairing the pipe line and the remainder the value of crude oil lost on account of the break, as found by the jury, and further that appellant recover of said H. E. McClelland the sum of $115, the amount recovered by appellee against it as the cost of repairing the pipe line. Shell Petroleum Corporation alone has appealed.
Appellant, in presenting said assignments, apparently assumes that knowledge on the part of McClelland of the existence and location of appellee's pipe line was a condition precedent to the existence of any duty on the part of appellant to cause the exercise of care to avoid injuring the same. Appellee did not seek to recover any damages against McClelland or any of the other truckmen engaged with him in dragging said loaded truck and trailer across its pipe line. Its suit was against appellant alone, and it sought to charge appellant with responsibility for the acts of its said employees under the doctrine of respondeat superior. Under this doctrine the master is responsible for want of care on the part of the servant toward those to whom the master is under the duty to use care, provided the failure of the servant to use such care occurred in the course of his employment. 29 Tex.Jur. p. 417, § 245; International G. N. Ry. Co. v. Anderson,
Appellee was not required to show by direct testimony that appellant, through its said superintendent or otherwise, knew of the existence and location of appellee's pipe line. All that was required of it was to introduce testimony of attending facts and circumstances from which a reasonable mind might infer, deduce, or conclude that such was the case. Gulf, C. S. F. R. Co. v. Battle (Tex.Civ.App.)
Appellant assails the sufficiency of the evidence to support the fourth finding of the jury that the negligent breaking of appellee's pipe line was the proximate cause of the loss of crude oil. We do not understand that appellant questions the causal connection between the breaking of the line and the escape of the oil therefrom. Its contention is that appellee's employees in charge of said line and of the pumps used in operating the same knew, or ought to have known, of the break and its location and should have cut said particular line out of service and stopped the flow of oil therein. Appellee's system of pipe lines and the location of pumping stations thereon was rather complicated, and we will not undertake to describe the same in detail. The break in this particular line occurred about 10 or 11 o'clock at night. No notice thereof was given to any of appellee's employees. The first intimation of trouble was about 12 o'clock that night, when a pump in that area was started and it was found that its operation did not produce the pressure it should have produced. This result was not attributed at the time to a break in any of the lines but to pump trouble. Ordinarily it would take two or three hours to ascertain whether such trouble was the real cause of inability to produce pressure. After considerable lapse of time, consumed in a thorough test of the pump, the inability to produce pressure was attributed to a possible break in some of appellee's lines and an inspector was sent out to try to locate the same. About 7 o'clock the next morning the break was located and that particular section of line cut out of service. The issue of the loss of crude oil as the proximate result of the break in appellee's pipe line was clearly raised by the evidence, and the court did not err in submitting the same.
We have examined all the contentions presented by appellant in its brief and have reached the conclusion that none of them require a reversal of the judgment, and the same is therefore affirmed.