WESSINGTON SPRINGS -- The South Dakota Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a Wessington Springs woman who claimed her neighbor's negligence led to the destruction of her home after the neighbor's home was blown up in a propane explosion.
The appeal arose from a lawsuit filed by Marguerite Cashman against Darrick Van Dyke. The two lived next door to each other on Oct. 12, 2007, when Van Dyke's home was destroyed in an early morning propane explosion. The flames from the explosion spread and also destroyed Cashman's home.
Cashman filed a lawsuit against Van Dyke in 2009 alleging his negligence led to the explosion and he should therefore be held liable for the damage caused to her home. After a hearing, a circuit court ruled Cashman lacked sufficient evidence to prove Van Dyke acted negligently.
Van Dyke testified he lit the pilot light on his furnace the night before the explosion occurred, but "smelled no odor and noticed nothing unusual," court documents state. He woke at about 5:30 a.m. to "what sounded like a tree falling on the house," the documents say, but managed to escape from his burning home. Van Dyke suffered burns to about 80 percent of his body in the incident.
According to court documents, Van Dyke had apparently been waiting for a local serviceman to come inspect his pilot light prior to the explosion, but decided to light his furnace anyway the night before the incident occurred. This formed the basis for Cashman's claim that Van Dyke acted negligently, as he told a bystander shortly after the explosion he should have waited for the serviceman to light the furnace. Cashman argued "a jury could infer that Van Dyke knew he should not have lit the pilot light himself," and he was negligent in doing so.
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The circuit court rejected her claim, ruling that "utterances made after the explosion are not proof that Van Dyke did something a reasonable person would not do."
The state Supreme Court found no error in the circuit court's ruling, as it ruled Cashman failed to provide any evidence Van Dyke acted negligently.
If Cashman could prove Van Dyke's actions in lighting the pilot light were "abnormally dangerous," Van Dyke could still be held liable for the damage caused by the explosion. However, both the circuit court and Supreme Court ruled there was not enough evidence to support the claim.
"While we can agree that houses do not normally explode, we find no support for Cashman's argument that houses only explode if the owner or the person in control of the home is negligent," the Supreme Court's decision says.
The decision to reject the appeal was unanimous, as Justice John Konenkamp wrote the opinion, and Chief Justice David Gilbertson and Justices Steven Zinter, Glen Severson and Lori Wilbur all concurred.
A June 2008 lawsuit filed by Van Dyke against his propane supplier, CHS Inc., ended in a confidential settlement.
