Hernandez v. Southern California Gas Co.

THE COURT.

Upon a re-examination of the record on this appeal after decision by the District Court of Appeal, First District, Division Two, we are satisfied with the statement of the facts, reasoning and conclusions of that court and hereby adopt the opinion there rendered, prepared by Mr. Justice Sturtevant, as the opinion of this court. It is as follows:

“Action for personal injuries. The verdict was in favor of the plaintiff and from the judgment entered thereon the defendant has appealed. For some months prior to the happening of the accident the Los Angeles County Sanitation District had been engaged in laying a sewer along the west side of Atlantic boulevard in the city of Los Angeles. In the immediate neighborhood of where the work was being done the ground is marshy. The water level is within six or seven feet of the surface of the ground. The sewer trench was dug and at the same time the water was pumped out and the pipe was so laid that the bottom of it was about ten feet below the surface of the ground. The pipe was about three feet in diameter and was made in joints of reinforced concrete. North of Tweedy boulevard the sewer had been laid. Manholes had been installed and some of them had been covered, but the joints of the pipe had not been caulked. The dirt and rock had been thrown back into the trench and the ground had been leveled up. The evidence does not show that any apertures, channels, or pipes of any kind led to, or into, the sewer from any direction except as they may have been created by or arisen out of the conditions we have noted. On the afternoon of the 22d day of February, 1927, the plaintiff took a coal oil lantern, tools, and materials, and entered the sewer to caulk the joints. He had worked about two hours and was inside of the sewer at a point approximately one hundred and fifty feet from the manhole he entered when an explosion occurred and he was seriously burned. He commenced this action to recover damages for his injuries. In

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Ms complaint he alleged that the defendant maintained gas pipes in Atlantic boulevard near the intersection of the two streets named above; that the pipes were negligently and carelessly maintained and that gas escaped therefrom in large quantities and exploded and injured him. In its answer the defendant denied specifically the allegations of the complaint. In presenting his case the plaintiff introduced evidence showing that he entered the sewer as above