Guist v. I-49 Truck Plaza

539 So. 2d 1255, 1989 La. App. LEXIS 447, 1989 WL 22850
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 15, 1989
DocketNo. 87-1280
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 539 So. 2d 1255 (Guist v. I-49 Truck Plaza) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guist v. I-49 Truck Plaza, 539 So. 2d 1255, 1989 La. App. LEXIS 447, 1989 WL 22850 (La. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

DOMENGEAUX, Judge.

Plaintiff, David W. Guist, brought this suit against the defendants, 1-49 Truck Plaza and its insurer, Hartford Insurance Company, for damages he sustained due to an exploding tire that had been mounted by an 1-49 Truck Plaza employee on a rim of improper size. After determining that the defendant had not acted negligently, the Trial Court ruled in favor of the defendant and dismissed the plaintiff’s suit. The plaintiff has appealed this ruling based on the following three assignments of error:

(1) The Trial Court erred in determining that the defendant’s employee did not act negligently in mounting a 16 inch innertubed tire onto a 16.5 inch tube-lessrim and then allowing the plaintiff to place 65 pounds of air into the tire.
(2) The Trial Court erred in determining that the defendants were not liable under a duty-risk analysis.
(3) The Trial Court erred in concluding that the plaintiff assumed the risk and/or was contributorily negligent.

FACTS

Around 10:00 p.m. on November 14, 1985, the plaintiff, David Guist, a twenty-eight year old moss picker by trade with an eighth grade education, had a trailer tire [1256]*1256blow out while hauling a week’s worth of moss. After the plaintiff unhitched the trailer from his truck, he left his ten year old nephew to guard the trailer full of moss and drove into Alexandria to have his spare tire mounted onto the blown out tire’s rim.

Around 11:00 p.m. he arrived at the defendant’s establishment, the 1-49 Truck Plaza, and asked to have his spare tire mounted onto the trailer’s rim. The defendants’ employee, Ernest Reed, sixty-one years old with over thirty-one years experience in changing tires, told the plaintiff to bring his tires to the rear. The plaintiff stated that the blown out tire had been a 16 inch innertubed tire mounted onto a 16.5 inch tubeless rim. The plaintiff had purposely combined these tire and rim styles and sizes because he believed it allowed him to carry greater tonnage. However, Reed testified that the blown out tire was a 16 inch tubeless tire, not an innertubed tire, mounted on a 16.5 inch tubeless rim. Both Reed and the plaintiff testified that the spare tire was a 16 inch innertubed tire that the plaintiff wanted mounted onto a 16.5 inch tubeless rim.

Immediately upon seeing the different styles and sizes of the spare tire and the trailer rim, Reed told the plaintiff that the spare tire and trailer rim were incompata-ble and that they would not work together. At this point the testimony varied as to what happened next.

Reed stated that the plaintiff insisted that the tire and rim would work together and pointed to the existing blown out tire that he claimed was a 16 inch innertubed tire on the 16.5 inch tubeless rim. Reed stated that the plaintiff’s youth and apparent strength intimidated him somewhat and he reluctantly agreed to try to mount the 16 inch innertubed tire onto the tubeless rim. After mounting it and placing 5 pounds of air in it to straighten out the innertube, Reed could not get the tire to seal to the rim. He then told the plaintiff that he would not fill the tire with 65 pounds of air pressure as the plaintiff had requested because he (Reed) was “afraid of it”. The plaintiff responded that he was not afraid of it and, after Reed installed a valve core which held the air in the tube, the plaintiff began to fill the tube with air. Reed allowed the plaintiff to proceed airing up the tire and chose to leave the automotive area. Soon thereafter the tire blew up and seriously injured the plaintiff's left hand and wrist.

The plaintiff’s version of events varied slightly. He stated that he and Reed argued over whether the tire Would fit onto the rim. Reed finally told the plaintiff that if the plaintiff did not leave the work area he would not try to mount the tire onto the rim. When the plaintiff returned a few minutes later, Reed was trying to get the tire to seal onto the rim but was unsuccessful. The plaintiff denied that Reed claimed to be “afraid of it”. Instead, the plaintiff stated that after several unsuccessful attempts by Reed to have the tire sealed to the rim, Reed became frustrated, tossed the tire aside and said that it couldn’t be done because the rim was too big for the tire. At that point, the plaintiff began trying to fill up the tire with 65 pounds of air pressure, while Reed, aware of the plaintiff’s intention to fill the tire, left the work area. After three attempts to fill the tire, the tire exploded and injured the plaintiff’s left hand.

The Trial Judge made no findings of fact regarding the discrepancies in the testimony of the plaintiff and Reed. Instead, the Trial Court restated the testimony of sever-* al witnesses and stated that if Reed had stated that he was afraid of the tire, then this was sufficient to put the plaintiff on notice that there was a danger that the tire would blow up. He then made the following ruling:

The problem here, as I see it, is that the dangerous situation by putting this tire on this rim never happened. The tire didn’t blow out, the tube blew out. Very frankly, I didn’t realize it was a dangerous situation, I mean, I was wondering what is the dangerous situation.
Mr. Reed said he didn’t say it was dangerous, he just said it wouldn’t fit, he didn’t know what it would do, and very frankly, that’s what I felt. What is the [1257]*1257danger? There has been no proof that it is a dangerous situation.
Mr. Lohman (the owner of the 1-49 Truck Plaza) testified that it was dangerous to put a tube type tire on a tubeless rim, and very possibly, if the danger caused by putting a tube type tire on a tubeless rim had happened, in other words, if the tire had blown out while it was on a vehicle, or while it was being filled up, because of the lack of fit between the tube, I think there would be some negligence on the part of defendant. But that’s not what happened.
Mr. Guist had the control of the tire at the time, he had been fooling with it, he’d been putting air in it, letting it out. It wasn’t because the rim didn’t fit the tire that it blew out, at least there is no proof in the record that that’s what happened.
Mr. Guist, I’m terribly sympathetic with you because of your injury, and because of the expenses that you have incurred, but the Court doesn’t find any fault on the part of the defendant, and for that reason, the plaintiff’s case is dismissed at plaintiff’s cost.

The plaintiff has appealed the Trial Court’s ruling based on the three aforementioned assignments of error.

NEGLIGENCE

As both the first and second assignments of error consider the issue of whether or not the defendant acted negligently, they shall be addressed together.

The plaintiff argues that the Trial Court erred in holding that the defendant was not liable for the plaintiff’s injuries as the defendant’s actions were the cause in fact of the accident and, under a duty-risk analysis, the defendant breached a legal duty owed to the plaintiff which was within the scope of the protection afforded by that duty.

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Related

Derek H. Tucker v. Renate Tucker
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2022
Guist v. I-49 Truck Plaza
543 So. 2d 20 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1989)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
539 So. 2d 1255, 1989 La. App. LEXIS 447, 1989 WL 22850, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guist-v-i-49-truck-plaza-lactapp-1989.