Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC v. Marco Murillo

449 S.W.3d 583, 2014 WL 5285845
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 7, 2014
Docket01-10-01123-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 449 S.W.3d 583 (Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC v. Marco Murillo) 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
Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC v. Marco Murillo, 449 S.W.3d 583, 2014 WL 5285845 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinions

EN BANC OPINION

JANE BLAND, Justice.

This lawsuit arises from an electrical contact workplace accident that occurred on a tract of property in Dallas. After subcontractor work crews demolished and removed existing apartment complexes located on the property, it was slated for redevelopment. Marco Murillo, an AAA Demolition Company employee, sustained severe injuries when he attempted to disconnect a cable from within an energized electrical transformer. Murillo sued the property’s owner, the developer, the project manager, and the area electrical provider, Oncor Electric Delivery Company, L.L.C. At Murillo’s request, the trial court submitted a general negligence question to the jury. The jury found liability against Oncor and three others — AAA (Murillo’s employer), Basic Industries, Inc. (the project manager) and Hunt Realty Investments, Inc. (the property developer). It apportioned 60% of the responsibility for Murillo’s injuries to Oncor.

Oncor appeals the judgment against it, rendered on the jury’s verdict. Oncor contends, among other complaints, that the trial court erred in submitting a general negligence charge to the jury with respect to Oncor, an electricity — carrier defendant. Because the trial court erred in rendering judgment against Oncor on a general negligence claim, we reverse.

Background

Next Block 1 — Dallas, LP acquired an eighty-three-acre tract of property, covering several blocks in Dallas County. At the time, the tract housed nine dilapidated apartment complexes, including the Windfall Apartments. Next Block retained HRC-MJR Development, LLC, an affiliate of Hunt Realty Investments, to provide development management services for the property. HRC-MJR assigned its employee, Scott Shipp, to be the manager for the project.

Oncor’s presence on the property

Oncor (also referred to as TXU Electric Delivery Company in the testimony and trial exhibits) held an electrical utility easement on the property, filed in the real property records of Dallas County in 1971, and initially granted to Dallas Power & Light Company. The easement granted use of the property within its bounds “for [586]*586the construction, maintenance, and operation of an electrical transmission.” Oncor had provided electric service to the apartments via sets of electrical transformers, housed in metal boxes that stood on concrete pads outside each apartment complex. These transformers converted the higher-voltage transmission line electricity to lower-voltage residential line electricity. Underground cables connected the transformers outside each apartment complex to a series of meters, one for each residence.

Two of these concrete transformer pads were located in front of the former Windfall Apartments. The pads, designated as Pads A and B, housed a set of transformers. On each pad, three opaque metal enclosures, or “boxes,” stood in a row: the first and third enclosures housed and entirely enclosed a transformer, and the middle enclosure, known as the secondary enclosure, housed and entirely enclosed equipment that routed the lower-voltage electricity from the transformers into an underground line that connected to the individual apartment electric meters.

Each of the three transformer boxes had an exterior door and an interior door, secured with locks. The transformer boxes conspicuously posted safety warnings. On the exterior door of each box, a sign read:

WARNING
Energized Electrical Equipment Inside
KEEP OUT
MAY SHOCK,- BURN, OR CAUSE DEATH
If Unlocked or Open
Immediately Call
Your TXU Office at
[toll free number]
On the interior doors, a sign read:
DANGER KEEP AWAY
IMMEDIATELY CALL DALLAS POWER & LIGHT CO.
[telephone number]
Contact with certain parts ' within this box can cause electric shock and death
KEEP AWAY

The signs included typical illustrations used to warn of danger from electrical shock.

The redevelopment of the property

The re-development plans contemplated that Oncor would remove its electrical transformers from the site. Oncor handled transformer removals with an onsite crew that de-energized and removed the electrical equipment and metal boxes.

In March 2007, Next Block and Oncor entered into a series of service agreements, in which Oncor charged Next Block a “facilities relocation/removal charge” for the “partial removal of distribution] Services to apt. properties.” The agreements terminated upon “completion of removal”; they did not specify a time frame. The agreement identified Shipp as the Next Block company customer representative and required that customer notification be sent to him in care of Hunt Realty Corporation.

Shipp was the development project’s sole contact point with Oncor.

Demolition begins

At the property, the old apartment buildings required asbestos abatement before further demolition could occur; the asbestos abatement workers required electric power for their equipment. Because [587]*587the dust generated during asbestos abatement is explosive, the power had to be turned off in the building while they worked, so they powered their equipment either from an adjacent building or from a temporary utility pole.

Jason Hagmeier, an Oncor employee, worked with Shipp on transformer removals from the work site. Periodically, Shipp would contact him and tell him an area that was ready for transformer removal. Hagmeier would then check Oncor’s records regarding the transformers involved and forward a removal plan to an Oncor work crew.

Oncor would schedule the removal when it had an available crew, usually within six to seven weeks of the request and in consideration of the priorities attendant to other jobs, such as those made necessary by weather-related service issues. Oncor work records show that its crews performed electrical relocation and transformer removal work throughout the property from April through July 2007.

Demolition at the Windfall Apartments

With respect to the Windfall Apartments, on April 19, Shipp e-mailed Oncor and asked that it close the metered electricity accounts at the Windfall Apartments “due to demolition of these apartments” and “remove all meters and service from the property.” The request listed multiple individual apartment units. The next day, Shipp further requested that Oncor supply power to a “temporary pole set” for the Windfall Apartments — necessary to provide electricity for the asbestos abatement workers. On April 24, an On-cor work crew connected two temporary utility poles installed near the Windfall Apartments.

On May 8, one of the Windfall transformers, on Pad A, caught fire due to a blown electric meter. Oncor sent a crew to the scene to de-energize that transformer. The other transformers remained energized.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
449 S.W.3d 583, 2014 WL 5285845, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oncor-electric-delivery-company-llc-v-marco-murillo-texapp-2014.