Siegler v. Kuhlman

Facts

Carol House, who was seventeen, died in a gasoline fire on the evening of November 22, 1967, on Capitol Lake Drive in Olympia. Her car ran into a pool of spilled gasoline. It was dark but dry, and her headlamps were on. Kuhlman, a truck driver for Pacific Intermountain Express, was hauling gasoline from Tumwater to Port Angeles: 3,800 gallons in the truck tank and 4,800 gallons in the trailer tank. Before he left, he inspected the trailer. As he went down an offramp from Interstate Highway 5 toward Highway 101, he felt a jerk and saw in his mirrors that the trailer was leaning over hard. The trailer came loose, crashed through a chain-link fence and landed upside down on Capitol Lake Drive below, with its lights out. The gasoline spilled and ignited, and House burned to death. The court said the reason the trailer separated remained a mystery. Pacific Intermountain Express owned the trailer. At trial, the defendants offered evidence of careful inspection, regular servicing and sound construction. They also offered evidence that both mainsprings broke from a kind of stress inspection could not predict, and that House was driving over the 35-mile-per-hour limit.

Issues

1. Should the trial court have given an instruction letting the jury infer negligence from the accident under res ipsa loquitur?
2. Is hauling gasoline as freight in great quantities on the public highways an abnormally dangerous activity, so that the hauler is strictly liable (liable without proof of fault) when the gasoline escapes and kills someone?

Holding

Hauling gasoline in great quantities as freight on the public highways is an abnormally dangerous activity that calls for strict liability. The jury trial on negligence was therefore not the end of the case, and the case was sent back for trial on damages alone. A res ipsa instruction was also due.