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State Farm Fire and Casualty v. Aquila Inc.6/14/2005
ontrol. Recognizing that escaping gas is a dangerous substance, we have consistently held that the supplier of gas is not an insurer of customers for injury or damage resulting therefrom, unless it can be shown that the gas has escaped from a pipe over which the [gas company] was charged with responsibility. . . . In other words, a greater duty arises as to pipes and appliances that are the responsibility of the [gas company], like its gas lines. . . . Thus . . . we applied a strict rule of liability when gas escapes from a pipe over which the [gas company] has control and for which it is responsible, but the same rule does not apply to gas escaping from appliances owned by the customer and maintained by him.
Id., at 172-73, 125 N.W.2d at 732 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
In Ruberg, the supreme court was addressing the notice requirement only in cases where the utility did not own or control the pipeline:
A supplier of gas must exercise a degree of care commensurate with the danger in a situation. With regard to that duty we have said: It may be generally stated that, where a gas company does not install or own the service lines on private property, and exercises no control over them, it is not responsible for the condition in which they are maintained and is not liable for damages caused by a leak therein of which it does not have notice. And a gas company, in the absence of notice of defects in the service lines, is not required to make inspections of the lines on private property when the lines are not owned by it or are under its control.
297 N.W.2d at 750-51 (citation and quotation omitted).
Here, Aquila owned and controlled the pipeline. As a consequence, the fact that Aquila never received notice of a defect or dangerous condition in its line does not defeat appellants' negligence claim.
In addition to the presumption that gas does not escape from pipelines if those responsible exercise proper care, there is the undisputed fact that for 11 years Aquila's gas line ran through a clay tile sewer. Appellants have alleged that Aquila was negligent in the inspection, maintenance and repair of its lines. Aquila argues that its gas line was "buried underground and was not readily accessible for inspection without significant expense" and that "the polyethylene pipeline system was specifically designed not to need any routine maintenance or inspection." But these allegations raise a fact issue of whether they were a reasonable excuse for Aquila's failure to detect and remedy a dangerous condition. See Manning, 129 Minn. at 56-58, 151 N.W. at 424-25 (affirming a jury verdict against a gas company for a wrongful death caused by a leak in a pipeline buried 27 inches below the surface). We conclude that appellants established a prima facie case of Aquila's negligence.
DECISION
We affirm the district court's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Northern Pipeline. But the district court erred in ruling as a matter of law that Minn. Stat. § 541.051 bars appellants' claims against Aquila and that appellants failed to present evidence of Aquila's negligence. Therefore, we reverse the district court's decision granting summary judgment in favor of Aquila.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
KALITOWSKI, Judge (concurring in part, dissenting in part)
I concur that the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of Northern Pipeline under Minn. Stat. § 541.051 (2004). But I respectfully dissent from the determination that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Aquila. The district court correctly held that the t
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