Seale v. Coca-Cola Bottling Works, Etc.

Summary

The Kentucky appellate court reversed a directed verdict for Coca-Cola Bottling Works in a negligence action alleging that the plaintiff was injured after consuming Coca-Cola containing glass slivers. The court held that evidence concerning the bottle’s sealed condition, carbonation, storage, and handling was sufficient to allow a jury to determine whether the bottle’s contents remained intact from bottling through consumption. The court further explained that, if the jury found the bottle left the bottling plant containing the glass, the defendant would bear the burden of offering an intervening-cause explanation under res ipsa loquitur.

Holdings

1. Evidence that the bottle was whole, sound, and unbroken and that it emitted the original-opening sound while retaining active carbonation was sufficient for the jury to infer that the bottle had not been tampered with after leaving the bottling plant.
2. The trial court erred in sustaining the bottler's motion for a peremptory instruction because the evidence supported a jury finding that the bottle contained the glass when it left the bottling plant.
3. If the jury found that the bottle contained the slivers of glass when it left the bottler's plant, the foreign substance would support an inference of negligence under res ipsa loquitur, subject to the bottler's opportunity to rebut the inference by showing an intervening agency.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to establish, for purposes of submitting the case to the jury, that the bottle's contents remained intact and untampered with from the time it left the bottler's plant until it was consumed.
2. Whether the trial court erred in directing a verdict for the bottler rather than allowing the jury to determine whether the bottle contained the glass when it left the bottling plant.
3. Whether, if the jury found that the glass was present when the bottle left the bottling plant, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur would permit an inference of negligence against the bottler absent an intervening-cause explanation.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded