Clifton F. Arledge and United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company v. Gulf Oil Corporation

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

The jury in this diversity case awarded the plaintiff, a gas station employee, damages against Gulf Oil Corporation (“Gulf”), his employer’s lessor for injuries sustained when a defective hydraulic lift fell and struck him while he was repairing a car. Gulf urges that the trial judge erred in instructing the jury that Gulf had assumed a duty to repair or replace the defective lift, leaving to the jury only the question whether Gulf performed that duty negligently. We agree, as a matter of Mississippi tort law, that insufficient evidence existed to support the…