Harding v. Sinclair Pipeline Company

480 S.W.2d 786, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2502
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 10, 1972
DocketNo. 615
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 480 S.W.2d 786 (Harding v. Sinclair Pipeline Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harding v. Sinclair Pipeline Company, 480 S.W.2d 786, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2502 (Tex. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

BARRON, Justice.

This is a personal injury suit. Bob Gene Harding, plaintiff, sued for personal injuries alleging negligence on the part of Sinclair Pipeline Company, Mobil Pipeline Company, and Gaylord Stickle Company, defendants. The District Court of Chambers County granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants. This appeal has been perfected from that judgment with Bob Gene Harding as appellant and the defendants as appellees.

Since the date of the accident, Gaylord Stickle has died, and Gaylord Stickle Company & Associates, Inc., successor in interest to Ruth Lucille Stickle, individually, as devisee under the will of Gaylord Stickle and as Independent Executrix of the Estate of Gaylord Stickle, d/b/a Gaylord Stickle Company, has been substituted as one party defendant. Suit was filed in this cause on October 10, 1967. Plaintiff seeks damages in the total Sum of $640,000.00.

On appeal, appellant brings forward three points of error, to-wit: Mobil failed to mark and maintain proper warnings for its buried pipeline; Stickle failed to discover and mark the Mobil pipeline; Sinclair did not give an adequate warning of the Mobil pipeline to Lipsey, Inc. or to Lipsey’s superintendent, Hendrickson.

In this summary judgment case the summary judgment evidence consists of depositions, interrogatories, admissions, and affidavits of various witnesses. The burden of proof was upon Sinclair Pipeline Company, Mobil Pipeline Company and Gaylord Stickle Company, movants, to prove controlling facts which do not conflict and which would show as a matter of law that the various defendants are not liable to Bob Gene Harding, the plaintiff-appellant. Gibbs v. General Motors Corporation, 450 S.W.2d 827 (Tex.Sup.1970); Torres v. Western Casualty and Surety Company, 457 S.W.2d 50 (Tex.Sup.1970); Tunks, Texas Summary Judgment Practice, 13 S. Tex.L.J. 1 (1971). Since summary judgment was granted by the trial court in favor of each defendant-appellee, we shall state the facts as best we can most favorably to appellant’s causes of action against appellees.

In 1966, Sinclair Pipeline Company (hereinafter called Sinclair) decided to build a pipeline from Mont Belvieu to Port Arthur, Texas, a distance of some 83 miles. The pipeline right-of-way was surveyed and staked by Gaylord Stickle Company, an independent contractor employed by Sinclair on this job, along with the continuing participation of employees of Sinclair. Partly using the survey notes made by Stickle, Sinclair prepared an alignment or strip map or maps for each segment of the project and furnished copies thereof to the construction Contractor, Lipsey, President of Lipsey, Inc., an independent contractor of Sinclair employed to do the construction work, including ditch digging, boring under roads, and all work necessary to lay, construct, complete and make ready for operation a pipeline 8⅝ inches in diameter. Lipsey’s pipeline superintendent was Carl J. Hendrickson, who in effect, was in charge of Lipsey’s job. Lipsey was absent a great part of the time and he did not study the map before the accident. Appellant was employed by Lipsey to operate a backhoe, a ditch-digging machine with shovels. The machine sits still when it is digging, at a maximum range of about 15 feet, and when that is completed the machine moves so the ditching can be continued. It is a self-propelled piece of heavy machinery with caterpillar tracks.

From Stickle’s notes mentioned above, from photographed sheets, ownership maps, county maps and from aerial mosaics, Sinclair prepared the alignment or strip maps and through Watkins, its chief inspector, delivered about ten copies of the strip maps to Hendrickson and Lipsey. It was [788]*788the apparent intention of Sinclair to give Lipsey, Inc. all the information available, and the strip maps were supposed to have shown all crossings of various types, including foreign pipeline crossings and including two pipelines belonging to Mobil and Magnolia which were near each other. The map itself, however, seems to us to be an approximation of the location of the intersection of the Sinclair line with the Mobil lines, though experienced witnesses adverse to appellant stated generally that the point of intersection could be located from the map. So far as we can determine, however, the intersection appears somewhere in the pasture of one W. V. Sutton, and there is no specific and definite location shown regarding the vital crossing of the pipelines determinable only from the map itself as more fully demonstrated below.

The Sinclair pipeline extended in a north-south direction. Sinclair notified Mobil that it was about to lay a new pipeline under the Mobil lines as shown by letter of M. W. Bellairs dated September 12, 1966. On September 19, 1966, by letter from J. R. Dean, apparently a Mobil officer, it was stated that “the crossing will be approximately 1 ½ miles east of Mont Bel-vieu” and that the location of Mobil’s two lines was marked in red. A map was sent by Mobil, wholly insufficient for correct and definite determination of the crossing, but request was made by Mobil that it have a representative present before Sinclair was to dig under Mobil’s line. This is supported by affidavit of R. H. Murphy, an employee of Mobile Pipeline Company. No further notification to Mobil was given by Sinclair.

While the evidence is in serious conflict, there was evidence that there were no survey stakes or flags showing the point of intersection between the Mobil pipelines and the new Sinclair pipeline. This is shown in particular by the testimony of Les Harding (brother of the appellant), O. D. Johnson, Horace Pierson, the appellant and others. Further, it is customary for inpsectors to be present both from the company whose line is being crossed as well as from the line being laid. In this case there were no inspectors present. Several crossings had been made, and inspectors had been present. There were no markers of any kind to indicate a pipeline crossing, but after the explosion, Mobil sent someone out to put up some signs and paint the fence posts. W. V. Sutton, owner of the property where the explosion occurred, made an affidavit that his farm bordered FM Road 565 and a now paved road running south from Highway 565. The road leading south was not paved at the time, but was being widened for purposes of eventual paving. The fences had been moved back, and there were no signs or fence markings indicating the presence of a buried Mobil pipeline or pipelines. After the explosion, Mobil came out and painted the fence posts and erected some warning signs, but they were not there on October 21, 1966, the date of the explosion. Mobil concedes that it took no action to mark the actual point of intersection of the two pipelines, by answer to interrogatories. At the time of the explosion all parties knew the adjacent gravel road was being widened and that the fence lines had been moved back, which in all probability resulted in no signs, painted fence posts or vents on this gravel road disclosing the Mobil pipelines. The nearest the proof came to showing visible signs and indications of the Mobil lines was testimony of Sinclair and Stickle employees that one must stand facing in line with the Mobil pipelines, where signs could be seen down the line from that position. Mobil signs on the road had no warning facing away from the road and were not visible from the pasture, as in this case, where the crossing was attempted.

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Bluebook (online)
480 S.W.2d 786, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2502, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harding-v-sinclair-pipeline-company-texapp-1972.