Schmidt v. Farmers Elevator Mutual Ins. Co‪.‬

The opinion of the court was delivered by The roots of this appeal go back to a cold February morning in
Canton, Kansas, nearly five years ago, when a fire consumed the
Friendly Chevrolet garage owned by the plaintiff, W.A. Schmidt.
At the time of this unfortunate occurrence, one of Mr. Schmidt's
employees was working on a propane truck of Farmers Co-op Grain
and Supply Company (herein called Co-op) which was brought to the
garage for emergency repairs, carrying a load of some 1200
gallons of liquid propane. Mr. Schmidt filed suit against Co-op and its insurance carrier,
Farmers Elevator Mutual Insurance Company, to recover his loss.
The basis of his claim was that the driver of the truck was
negligent in failing to turn off the main tank or shutoff valves
and in failing to drain the lines and hoses before the vehicle
was garaged, thus allowing gas to escape which ignited and caused
the fire. Co-op and its insurer denied negligence and filed a
cross-petition for loss of Co-op's truck and for loss of Co-op's
time, claiming negligence on Schmidt's part.