Opinion ID: 1119820
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Heading: Mix and its progeny: The foreign-natural test and the reasonable expectations of the consumer

Text: An early rule of implied warranty in cases involving foreign or adulterated food substances was adopted, as of 1960, by 17 jurisdictions, including California. (Prosser, The Assault Upon the Citadel (Strict Liability to the Consumer) (1960) 69 Yale L.J. 1099, 1106.) (1) A review of the California cases reveals that the acceptance of an implied warranty rule against manufacturers in cases involving unfit foodstuffs was based on the rationale that a manufacturer that sold food items could no longer hide behind the shield of privity to absolve itself of liability. ( Klein v. Duchess Sandwich Co., Ltd. (1939) 14 Cal.2d 272 [93 P.2d 799] ( Klein ); Vaccarezza v. Sanguinetti (1945) 71 Cal. App.2d 687 [163 P.2d 470] ( Vaccarezza ).) In Klein, supra, 14 Cal.3d 272, the plaintiff's husband purchased a sandwich that was infested with maggots. The sandwich had been prepared by the defendant and distributed to a restaurant for sale. ( Id. at pp. 273-274.) The plaintiff ate the sandwich and became ill. Klein interpreted the term buyer under the Uniform Sales Act (making sellers of adulterated food liable to buyers) to include the ultimate consumer, and held that the warranty of fitness should apply to a manufacturer of foodstuffs, notwithstanding the fact that a retailer may have sold the goods to the consumer. Klein determined that foodstuffs do not fall within the general rule of privity between the manufacturer and the consumer, even though the purchase is made through a retailer. ( Id. at p. 284; see also Vaccarezza, supra, 71 Cal. App.2d 687, 689 [implied warranty imposes an absolute liability on manufacturers of food products].) This same implied warranty for foreign or adulterated substances in food was extended to independent restaurant owners who purchased the food from outside manufacturers in Goetten v. Owl Drug Co. (1936) 6 Cal.2d 683, 685 [59 P.2d 142], filed the same day as Mix, supra, 6 Cal.2d 674. In Goetten, a patron choked on a piece of glass in a serving of chow mein at the defendant's lunch counter. Initially, we rejected the defendant's contention that furnishing food did not constitute a sale for purposes of statutory implied warranty, and based our holding on the fact that restaurateurs have the food under their control at the time it is served to the patron. ( Goetten, supra, 6 Cal.2d at p. 687.) We imposed on the restaurateur a burden to inspect the food, reasoning that: As between the patron, who has no means of determining whether the food served is safe for human consumption, and the seller, who has the opportunity of determining its fitness, the burden properly rests with the seller, who could have so cared for the food as to have made the injury to the customer impossible. ( Ibid. ) A different rule developed when the injury was caused by an object deemed natural to the food being served. In Mix, supra, 6 Cal.2d 674, the plaintiff swallowed a fragment of chicken bone contained in a chicken pot pie he consumed in the defendant's restaurant. Mix affirmed the trial court order dismissing the plaintiff's complaint for negligence and breach of implied warranty. We held there could be no liability under either an implied warranty or negligence theory, explaining that the statutory implied warranty of fitness of food (see former Civ. Code, § 1735, replaced by Cal. U. Com. Code, §§ 2314, 2315) [3] does not make the purveyor an insurer, but merely requires that food be reasonably fit for human consumption. Although we conceded that it is frequently a question for the jury to determine whether an injury-producing substance present in food makes the food unfit for consumption, we maintained that a court in appropriate cases may find as a matter of law that an alleged harmful substance in food does not make the food defective or unfit for consumption. We explained our holding as follows: Bones which are natural to the type of meat served cannot legitimately be called a foreign substance, and a consumer who eats meat dishes ought to anticipate and be on his guard against the presence of such bones. At least he cannot hold the restaurant keeper whose representation implied by law is that the meat dish is reasonably fit for human consumption, liable for any injury occurring as a result of the presence of a chicken bone in such chicken pie. In the case of Goetten v. Owl Drug Co., [ supra, 6 Cal.2d 683] this day decided, we held that the application of the rule of implied warranty might impose a heavy burden upon the keeper of restaurants and lunch counters, but that considerations of public policy and public health and safety are of such importance as to demand that such obligation be imposed. This is true, but we do not believe that the onerous rule should be carried to its extreme limits. Certainly no liability would attach to a restaurant keeper for the serving of a T-bone steak, or a beef stew, which contained a bone natural to the type of meat served, or if a fish dish should contain a fish bone, or if a cherry pie should contain a cherry stone  although it be admitted that an ideal cherry pie would be stoneless. ( Mix, supra, 6 Cal.2d at p. 682.) We concluded as a matter of law that a chicken pot pie containing chicken bones is reasonably fit for consumption, and there could be no breach of the implied warranty under former Civil Code section 1735. (6 Cal.2d at p. 682.) As for the negligence claim, we concluded that because the restaurateur had no duty to offer a perfect chicken pie, he or she was not negligent in serving a pie with a bone in it. (6 Cal.2d at pp. 682-683.) Mix stated the negligence rule as follows: [T]he restaurant keeper's obligation is limited to the exercise of due care in the preparation and service of food furnished guests.... [A] duty of exercising due care in the furnishing and serving of food to guests exists on the part of a restaurant keeper, and ... he is liable in damages for any breach of such duty. ( Id. at p. 680.) After recognizing the duty of care, however, the Mix court observed that injury due to a chicken bone in a chicken pie did not establish a lack of due care amounting to a breach of that duty. The court observed that the negligence issue involved a question of whether or not a restaurant keeper in the exercise of due care is required to serve in every instance a perfect chicken pie, in that all bones are entirely eliminated. If the customer has no right to expect such a perfect product, and we think he is not so entitled, then it cannot be said that it was negligence on the part of the restaurant keeper to fail to furnish an entirely boneless chicken pie. (6 Cal.2d at p. 683; see also Silva v. F.W. Woolworth Co. (1938) 28 Cal. App.2d 649 [83 P.2d 76] [no recovery for turkey bone in turkey dressing]; Shapiro v. Hotel Statler Corporation (S.D.Cal. 1955) 132 F. Supp. 891 [no liability for fish bone in seafood dish].) In 1963, our Legislature repealed former Civil Code section 1735 and adopted California Uniform Commercial Code sections 2314 and 2315. In adopting the new code sections, the Legislature was aware of the common law distinction between foreign and natural substances when determining liability for breach of the implied warranties. Indeed, the California Code comments to California Uniform Commercial Code section 2314 note the Legislature's recognition of the Mix rule: The second sentence of subdivision (1), defining as a sale the serving of food and drink, is in accord with prior California case law. Klein v. Duchess Sandwich Co., 14 Cal.2d 272 ... and Mix v. Ingersoll Candy Co., 6 Cal.2d 674.... (See 23A West's Ann. Cal. U. Com. Code (1964 ed.) § 2314, p. 265; see also Cal. Code coms. to Cal. U. Com. Code, § 2315, & notes of decisions, note 11 [23A West's Ann. Cal. U. Com. Code, supra, § 2315, pp. 288, 297].) Contrary to Justice Arabian's dissent, our Mix rule has not been universally rejected but has been followed for over 30 years by several other jurisdictions. For example, in Brown v. Nebiker (1941) 229 Iowa 1223 [296 N.W. 366], the Iowa Supreme Court held that the plaintiff could not recover for injuries caused by a sliver of bone in a pork chop. In affirming a directed verdict for defendant restaurateur, the court observed, One who eats pork chops, or the favorite dish of spare ribs and sauerkraut, or the type of meat that bones are natural to, ought to anticipate and be on his guard against the presence of bones, which he knows will be there. ( Id. at p. 371.) In Goodwin v. Country Club of Peoria (1944) 323 Ill. App. 1 [54 N.E.2d 612], the court held that a defense verdict should have been directed in a wrongful death action that arose after a restaurant patron swallowed a bone while eating creamed chicken. The Appellate Court of Illinois observed: [C]ommon experience dictates that one eating the meat of animals, fowl or fish, should do so with the knowledge that such food may contain pieces of bone. [¶] ... Although the rule that a restaurant keeper is liable [in implied warranty] for foreign substances in food served to patrons, and is held to impliedly warrant food to be fit and wholesome to be eaten is well settled[,] ... [w]e do not believe the rule as established in this jurisdiction, exceeds an implied warranty that food served shall be wholesome and fit to be eaten. The importance of pure food to the public must not be ignored. Modern conditions require that establishments serving food shall be operated in a sanitary way and furnish food that is wholesome and fit to be eaten. However, such rule should be construed and applied in a reasonable manner, taking into consideration the common experience of life. When viewed in this light, it must be conceded that practically all meat dishes, whether they consist of beef, pork, fish or fowl, do contain bones peculiar to the food being served. ( Id. at p. 615.) In Norris v. Pig'n Whistle Sandwich Shop (1949) 79 Ga. App. 369 [53 S.E.2d 718], the Georgia Court of Appeals denied the plaintiff recovery in negligence for injuries caused by a bone in a barbecued pork sandwich. The court noted, [c]ertainly it was not the intent of our lawmakers to deem an article of food, containing meat, adulterated merely because it contained portions of the animal which were inedible, but which did not render such food unfit for its intended consumption. Otherwise numerous articles of food which necessarily contain inedible portions of animal matter would be deemed adulterated. Numerous meats and fish are normally prepared which contain bone and other inedible matter indigenous to the animal from which the food is derived, yet these articles of food could not be deemed adulterated. ( Id. at p. 723; Webster v. Blue Ship Tea Room (1964) 347 Mass. 421 [198 N.E.2d 309] [no recovery for injury from fish bone in fish chowder]; Adams v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (1960) 251 N.C. 565 [112 S.E.2d 92, 94] [no recovery for injuries caused by grain of corn in box of corn flakes]; Coffer v. Standard Brands, Inc. (1976) 30 N.C. App. 134 [226 S.E.2d 534] [no liability for unshelled filberts]; but see Goodman v. Wenco Management (1990) 100 N.C. App. 108 [394 S.E.2d 832] [application of Adams test would not bar recovery for sizeable bone in hamburger patty].)