Court Opinion

ID: 9865616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 19:08:26.921373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:42.220058
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION TOR REHEARING.
Movant insists that, having alleged in his petition “that in said can of soup was a quantity, unknown to the plaintiff, of impure, tainted, poisonous, deleterious, and unwholesome matter which was negligently permitted by the defendant manufacturer to become mixed with the contents of this can,” and that “defendant was negligent in permitting said putrid, impure, tainted, deleterious, and unwholesome substance to become an ingredient in said product,” and her evidence having been sufficient to show that such allegations were true, she showed a violation of the Code, §§ 42-109, 42-115, 42-9901, and thus showed negligence per se because of a breach of a statutory duty.
This court in Armour v. Miller, 39 Ga. App. 228 (supra), in a petition in almost the identical language used here, said that these sections do not apply under such allegations, and that “the manufacturer is not an insurer of his product, and in an action against him the plaintiff must allege and prove either wilful misconduct or negligence in allowing the product to become unwholesome.” This ruling was approved by the Supreme Court in Armour v. Miller, 169 Ga. 201 (149 S. E. 698), where Judge Jenkins said that subsection 5 of § 42-109 of the Code refers to any “added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health,” that the “use of the word 'added’ . . can not be regarded as meaningless,” and that “it was intended to provide that any article of food manufactured and sold in this country . . should not be deemed to be adulterated merely because it contained a poisonous or deleterious ingredient, . . but that all other articles of food, whether simple or compound, were not to be deemed adulterated on account of the presence of a poisonous or deleterious ingredient, unless such ingredient was 'added’ to the article of food in question, that is, was an ingredient foreign to its natural or normal constituency.” Judge Bell in Donaldson v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 186 Ga. 870, 879 (199 S. E. 213), expressly stated that nothing there said was contrary to the decision in the Miller case, supra. It will be noted that in the Donaldson case the provisions' of subsection 7, *138instead of subsection 5, were being applied by the court in respect to allegations of negligence per se. The court said: “In a suit for damages against a seller of unwholesome food by the use of which the plaintiff, is injured, it is still necessary to prove that the defendant either knew of the unwholesome condition of the food or was guilty of negligence in the transaction," and that the provisions of the Code, § 105-1101, were applicable. The effect of the Donaldson decision was to hold that it being expressly made unlawful to sell decomposed liver, under subsection 7, supra, such act was the violation of a criminal statute, and was negligence per se, and a cause of action was supported upon proof thereof, without any further proof of negligence. The provisions of subsection 5 do not make a manufacturer guilty merely by proving that such article of food contained deleterious and unwholesome ingredients, unless it is shown that they were added and were foreign thereto. Negligence per se was not involved either under the pleadings or the evidence in this case, and we have fully considered the case as to the negligence alleged.

Rehearing denied.

Broyles, O. J., and MacIntyre, J., concur.