Johannsen v. Mid-Continent Co‪.‬

Otto Johannsen was employed by the Denison Auto Company, distributors of Sinclair petroleum products, including gasoline. He operated a truck equipped with a tank, by means of which he transported and delivered petroleum products. The Denison Auto Company had a bulk plant on a siding, or industrial track, on the Illinois Central railroad in the town of Denison, Iowa, where it maintained tanks capable of holding large quantities of gasoline and which were filled from tank cars on the railroad siding. On the 30th [232 Iowa Page 807] day of April 1936, Thomas Lorenzen was in the employ at Denison, Iowa, of the Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation of Kentucky, in the operation of its bulk plant from which gasoline and kerosene were dispensed at wholesale. Its bulk station was located north of the Denison Auto Company and there were about 25 feet between the two bulk stations. The Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation station consisted of a vertical tank and two horizontal tanks on stilts, and a small pump house in which was located a gasoline engine and pump which pumped gasoline from tank cars to the bulk-storage tanks. On the 30th day of April 1936, Thomas Lorenzen, the employee of the Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation, in the operation of the bulk plant was pumping gasoline from a tank car to one of the horizontal storage tanks. He left the station with the gasoline engine and pump operating to go downtown. While he was absent, Otto Johannsen went to the bulk plant of his employer, the Denison Auto Company, and noticed when he arrived there that gasoline was overflowing from the Mid-Continent tank, that the wind was blowing the gasoline around, and gasoline was running on the ground. He ran over to the Mid-Continent bulk station and turned off the gasoline engine. Before he escaped from the premises the whole thing became a mass of flames, and in running through the flames to escape to a place of safety he was severely burned.