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Crews v. Hollenbach5/11/2000
s that Mr. Crews was compelled to choose the course of conduct that he selected. The available facts before the trial judge at the summary judgment hearing came from the partial transcript of Mr. Crews's deposition. The only reference in the transcript that remotely suggests any compulsion on Mr. Crews to confront the gas leak, or risk his job, is his response to a question from Maryland Cable's counsel, wherein Mr. Crews stated:
. . . but as I said before, that it have to be worked, regardless. You know what I mean? It have to be repaired. It's a chance you have to - that we go through.
This enigmatic statement, standing alone as it does, fails to explain adequately what actual factors may have forced Mr. Crews to take action. Without greater elaboration, we cannot conclude that his actions were involuntary for purposes of our assumption of the risk analysis. See ADM Partnership, 384 Md. at 100-01, 702 A.2d 739; Brady, 327 Md. at 289, 609 A.2d at 304. The unsupported argument in Petitioners' brief that Mr. Crews acted to save the people and the property of the surrounding neighborhood is insufficient to demonstrate there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact. See Lowman v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 68 Md. App. 64, 70, 509 A.2d 1239, cert. denied, 307 Md. 406, 514 A.2d 24 (1986).
Of greater influence on our conclusion, however, is the undisputed evidence that the danger Mr. Crews encountered on Trillium Lane in Bowie on 23 April 1996 is the very danger that he accepted the risk of confronting when he became an employee of Washington Gas some twenty years earlier. In his own words, he accepted that responsibility when he was hired. Thus, the aspect of his job duties that involved fixing gas leaks, a clearly dangerous endeavor, and which he continued to confront for more than twenty years, constitutes a voluntary assumption of "those risks which might reasonably be expected to exist" on 23 April 1996 in Bowie. It seems to us, on this record, that the risk that led to Mr. Crews's injuries was reasonably identifiable and inherent in his job both when he was first hired and on 23 April 1996. Accordingly, we find no error of law in the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment, on this record, in favor of Respondents.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONERS.
TORTS - NEGLIGENCE - DEFENSES - ASSUMPTION OF THE RISK
Under the assumption of the risk doctrine, a private worker employed to repair natural gas line leaks who is later injured by an explosion occurring in the course of undertaking to repair such a leak may be precluded from pursing tort claims for those injuries.
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