Rexroad v. Kansas Power & Light Co.

388 P.2d 832, 192 Kan. 343, 1964 Kan. LEXIS 247
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedJanuary 25, 1964
Docket43,326
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 388 P.2d 832 (Rexroad v. Kansas Power & Light Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rexroad v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 388 P.2d 832, 192 Kan. 343, 1964 Kan. LEXIS 247 (kan 1964).

Opinions

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Schroeder, J.:

This is a negligence action arising out of a fire started when the plaintiffs’ bulldozer severed a high pressure gas transmission line connection of the Kansas Power and Light Company (defendant-appellant-cross appellee) while doing certain street improvement work in the city of Assaria, Kansas. The bulldozer was a total loss as a result of the fire and a nearby house and its contents were consumed. Plaintiffs seek to recover for the bulldozer and for amounts which they were adjudged liable to pay in connection with the loss of the house and contents. The defendant cross-claimed for loss of a gas town border station and equipment and a quantity of natural gas.

The case was tried to a jury which returned a verdict for less than half the sum sought. The trial court granted a motion for a new trial on the question of damages only. Appeal has been duly perfected by each of the parties from various orders of the trial court presenting the issues hereinafter discussed.

On the 31st day of August, 1961, L. W. Rexroad and Jay M. Rexroad, d/b/a L. W. Rexroad and Son (plaintiffs-appellees-cross appellants), hereafter referred to as Rexroad, entered into a written street improvement contract with the city of Assaria, Kansas. The contract called for the grading, curbing and guttering of certain streets in the city. Work under the contract was commenced on or about October 1, 1951. At about this same time L. W. Rex-road went to the Salina office of the Kansas Power and Light Company and there obtained a sketch map showing the general location of its gas transmission and distribution lines within the city of Assaria. The Kansas Power and Light Company had a franchise to serve gas within the city of Assaria and had transmission lines running through the city in addition to its distribution system. The map was not complete in that it did not show dimensions, depths or many other details. Rexroad did not rely on the map and the jury so found.

The Kansas Power and Light Company’s high pressure transmission lines were located in or near Railroad Avenue, a north-south street on the eastern edge of the city. It had a 6-inch gas [346]*346transmission line running north and south along the eastern edge of Railroad Avenue, being between the edge of the street and the railroad right of way adjacent on the east. The Kansas Power and Light Company also had an 8-inch gas transmission line running north and south approximately in the center of Railroad Avenue. These two transmission lines were installed in 1928. There were connections or taps running from each of these transmission lines into a gas town border station on the west curbing of Railroad Avenue in the block in which the accident occurred. This town border station was the point from which gas service was provided to the town. From there the gas was piped to the low pressure distribution system in the town.

The map showed a 2-inch connection from the high pressure 6-inch main to the gas border station on Railroad Avenue, but no such connection was shown on the 8-inch high pressure gas main. It was this undisclosed 2-inch connection from the 8-inch high pressure gas main that was struck by the bulldozer of Rexroad on February 2, 1952, causing all the damage involved in this case.

The portion of the line struck by the bulldozer was a 2-inch pipe rising vertically 13 inches from the top of the 8-inch main and then back in a “U” shape to the level of the 8-inch pipe and then turning in a southwesterly direction to a connection in the town border station. The loop as just described had threaded fittings to compensate for expansion and contraction of the line. The 13-inch riser would have extended 2 inches above the top of the valley gutter to be constructed by Rexroad at that point. This valley gutter was clearly shown on the plans previously left with the office of the Kansas Power and Light Company so that such hazards could be called to the attention of Rexroad, but the riser and the 2-inch connecting pipe were not shown on the map.

A 6-inch high pressure main was known to be adequate to serve a town the size of Assaria.

The construction crew of the Kansas Power and Light Company was asked to and did lower the 6-inch high pressure line at the request of the resident engineer of the city, James A. Newberry, because it was in the area where Rexroad was to construct a catch basin to catch the water from the valley gutter under which the 2-inch pipe was later found to rise 13 inches from the 8-inch high pressure line. Other changes were requested but no request for alteration or change was made concerning the 8-inch line, it being [347]*347thought the 8-inch line was far enough out in the street to avoid interference. Upon completion of the work by the Kansas Power and Light Company’s employees, its foreman told the employees of Rexroad the area had been cleared so that work could safely proceed. No disclosure was ever made of the presence of the 13-inch riser until it was struck by the bulldozer.

There was testimony that the minimum safe depth at which such high pressure lines should be buried was 24 inches from the surface of the ground to the top of the pipe, and that where there is a possibility of the ground being worked, either by grading or plowing or any form of earth moving, it should be buried at a depth of 3 feet. The testimony was that the minimum safe depth for the burial of the 2-inch riser in question was the same as for the 8-inch pipe itself, in that it also contained gas under high pressure the same as the 8-inch line. There was also testimony to indicate that it was not necessary that such riser be vertical, that it could be horizontal and still serve the same purpose, and the safer practice was to have it horizontal rather than vertical.

As a further precaution, because of the great hazard of the high pressure gas pipelines, two employees of Rexroad went ahead of the bulldozer with “sharpshooter” shovels as excavation was being done in front of the gas town border station, probing the ground to be sure no pipes were in the path. While proceeding north on the western side of Railroad Avenue, the right or eastern edge of the bulldozer blade struck the hidden riser or expansion loop which extended upward on the 8-inch main bending it sufficiently to sever the connection. A fire immediately broke out. It completely consumed the bulldozer, the town border station of the Kansas Power and Light Company and a nearby house belonging to one Anna Anderson and her daughter, Jo Ann Brewer.

On January 14, 1953, Anna Anderson and Jo Ann Brewer filed an action against Rexroad for the replacement cost of their house and contents and the loss of use, suing as third party beneficiaries of the aforesaid contract between the city of Assaria and Rexroad. The Kansas Power and Light Company was not a party to that action, nor was it ever asked to participate in the defense thereof. Four months after the filing of the Anderson case, and on May 26, 1953, Rexroad sued the Kansas Power and Light Company in tort, seeking damages only for the loss of the bulldozer. While the action for the bulldozer was pending, the Anderson case made three trips to the Supreme Court. (Anderson v. Rexroad, 175 Kan. 676, 266 P. 2d [348]*348320; 178 Kan. 227, 284 P. 2d 1077; and 180 Kan. 505, 306 P. 2d 137.) Judgment was finally affirmed in favor of the plaintiffs and against Rexroad in the contract case.

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Rexroad v. Kansas Power & Light Co.
388 P.2d 832 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1964)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
388 P.2d 832, 192 Kan. 343, 1964 Kan. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rexroad-v-kansas-power-light-co-kan-1964.