## Facts

- William Buckbee was a maintenance foreman at Lake Charles Refining Co. (LCR) tasked with reassembling and installing a second-hand industrial box heater.
- The heater had previously been used at United Gas Pipe Line Company, Inc.’s Texas facility, later sold to a used-equipment dealer, and then sold to LCR.
- On January 15, 1980, Buckbee and coworker Roosevelt Vincent tried to remove a tapered metal plug protruding from an exterior header on the heater.
- After roughly two hours of unsuccessful attempts using “cold” methods (wrenches and sledge hammers), Buckbee left the scaffold and went to the plant office for about ten minutes.
- When Buckbee returned, he and Vincent used an acetylene torch to apply heat in an effort to loosen the plug.
- The heat ignited volatile, flammable material inside the heater; the plug was expelled and a fire erupted, severely burning both men.
- Vincent survived; Buckbee died about three weeks later from his injuries.
- Buckbee’s widow and minor child sued United Gas, alleging United Gas negligently failed to inspect, test, and clean the heater before it entered the stream of commerce and failed to warn of a dangerous condition.
- At trial, Buckbee’s supervisors were allowed to testify that the plug should have been removed without heat and that they had discussed the proper cold-removal procedure with Buckbee before the accident.
- The trial court excluded Vincent’s testimony that (a) before leaving, Buckbee said he was going to the plant office to seek permission to use heat, and (b) after returning, Buckbee said he had received permission to apply heat.
- The jury denied recovery based on a finding that Buckbee was contributorily negligent; the court of appeal affirmed.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court commit evidentiary error by excluding Vincent’s testimony recounting Buckbee’s statements about seeking and receiving permission to apply heat to the plug?
2. If the exclusion was error, was it sufficiently prejudicial to require reversal of the contributory-negligence defense verdict?

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court held the trial court erred in excluding Vincent’s testimony about Buckbee’s statements concerning permission to use heat.
- The court concluded the exclusion was prejudicial because the evidence bore directly on whether Buckbee acted reasonably and on the jury’s contributory-negligence finding.
- The court reversed the judgment below and remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- The hearsay rule generally bars testimony repeating out-of-court statements offered for their truth when the declarant was not under oath, not before the factfinder, and not subject to cross-examination; the rule is aimed at reliability concerns tied to perception, memory, narration, and sincerity.
- An out-of-court statement is not barred as hearsay when offered for a non-hearsay purpose, such as showing the declarant’s then-existing intent or explaining why the declarant acted as he did, rather than proving the literal truth of the statement.
- When a trial court allows one-sided proof on a key contested question (here, whether Buckbee disregarded instructions) while excluding countervailing evidence bearing on the same question, the resulting imbalance can materially affect the verdict.
- An evidentiary ruling warrants reversal when there is a reasonable chance the error contributed to the outcome, particularly where the excluded evidence goes to the dispositive fault allocation.

## Conclusion

Because the jury’s no-recovery verdict turned on contributory negligence, and because Vincent’s excluded testimony would have supported the plaintiffs’ account that Buckbee sought and believed he received supervisory permission before using heat, the Louisiana Supreme Court found the exclusion to be harmful evidentiary error, reversed, and remanded for further proceedings.


Buckbee v. United Gas Pipe Line Co., 561 So. 2d 76 (1990)