Donnan v. Pennsylvania Torpedo Co.

Citations

• 26 Pa. Super. 324
• 1904 Pa. Super. LEXIS 315

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Oil well — Torpedo explosion — Damages—Evidence.</p> <p>Where a torpedo company undertakes to discharge a torpedo in oil sand some distance below the bottom of an oil well it is bound to bring to the performance of the work the exercise of the ordinary skill and care of the business and avail itself of the usual appliances to guard against injury to the property with which it deals. If the agent of the company fails to use the proper appliances and does not observe ordinary skill, and the torpedo is exploded in the well itself far above the point where the explosion was intended to occur, the company will be liable for the destruction of the well.</p> <p>In such a case the court commits no error in charging on the measure of damages as follows: “ If the damage could be repaired, then the measure of damages would be the cost of that repair. But if the cost of the repair would be more than the value of the property, or if a new well could be drilled more cheaply than this one could be repaired or cleaned out, then of course the party should not estimate his damages by the more expensive method; he should take that which is cheapest. If it is cheaper to drill a new well he should do that. If it is cheaper to abandon the well altogether then he should abandon it, and then would be entitled to charge the party only with the market price, what it was worth in the market. If it was utterly destroyed, or destroyed so that a repair would cost more than the digging of a new well and the digging of a new well would cost more than it would be worth, then neither of these things should be done, and it would come back to the question of the value of the well.”</p> <p>In such a case the jury may properly take into consideration, in estimating the damages, that the well in question was run as one of a system of small wells, and also that the usual and ordinary result of shooting wells in that particular field, which had never been shot before, was to increase the pr