Court Opinion

ID: 9542031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:30:48.9147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:00.299635
License: Public Domain

SUTIN, Judge (dissenting). I dissent. Evidence little, damages small, issues and law in the court below formless, and the change of position taken on this appeal, proves the inadequacy in the presentation, both in the trial court and on this appeal. The first count in plaintiffs’ complaint proceeded on the strict liability theory that a bottle of 7-Up was in an unwholesome condition, unreasonably dangerous. The second count proceeded on the theory of negligence. During the trial plaintiffs abandoned their claim of negligence without explanation. Plaintiffs’ attorney apparently overlooked the New Mexico Food Act, § 54-1-1, et seq., N.M.S.A. 1953 (Repl. Vol. 8, pt. 2); 35 Am.Jur.2d Food, § 92 (1967), and 36A C.J.S. Food § 59, p. 913 (1961). Good law on the subject of negligence had no value. See also, 35 Am.Jur.2d Food, § 89; 36A C.J.S. Food § 59; and Tafoya v. Las Cruces Coca-Cola Bottling Company, 59 N.M. 43, 278 P.2d 575 (1955). Plaintiffs and defendants submitted requested findings of fact on defendants’ negligence. None of the requested findings proceeded on the theory of strict liability, and, as a result, the court made none. Both parties proceeded here on the theory of strict liability. Defendants claim that plaintiffs “must prove that the product of defendants was erroneously dangerous to them as user or consumer and that it was sold to them in a defective condition.” Neither of the parties submitted authority precisely in point. Under the doctrine of strict liability, plaintiffs were entitled to recover damages. Shoshone Coca-Cola Bottling Company v. Dolinski, 82 Nev. 439, 420 P.2d 855 (1966); Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Plainview v. White, 545 S.W.2d 279 (Tex.Civ.App. 1976); Slonsky v. Phoenix Coca-Cola Bottling Company, 18 Ariz.App. 10, 499 P.2d 741 (1972); Allen v. Coca-Cola Bottling Company, 403 S.W.2d 20 (Ky. 1966). Judge Hernandez reversed because there was no evidence that the contents of the 7-Up bottle was “unreasonably dangerous.” This terminology has not been defined. John W. Wade, distinguished professor and renown authority on the subject, believed that the courts were trying to say that “unreasonably dangerous” meant that “the product must be harmful or unsafe because of something wrong with it. . It may suggest an idea like ultrahazardous, or abnormally dangerous, and thus give rise to the impression that the plaintiff must prove that the product was unusually or extremely dangerous. . . . There are other terms that might be used. For example, unsafe, or harmful, or injurious — or, in the case of foodstuffs, unwholesome. . Selling unwholesome food is negligence in itself, without anything more. This, by accurate analysis, is a form of strict liability." [Emphasis added.] Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products, 44 Miss. L.J. 825, 830, 832, 835 (1973). For defenses in products liability, see Noel, Defective Products: Abnormal Use, Contributory Negligence and Assumption of Risk, 25 Vand.L.Rev. 93. See also Restatement, Torts 2d (1965) § 402A, comment (h). “Over a span of more than a century, several states adopted a strict form of liability for food, which Titus argues is the ‘only legitimate case-law support’ for the strict liability rule in section 402A of the Second Torts Restatement. This ‘special food warrant’ supported precedents dated to medieval times, supplied the basis for a number of strict liability decisions concerning products that had analogously close contact with the [human] body.” Shapo, A Representational Theory of Consumer Protection: Doctrine, Function and Legal Liability for Product Disappointment, 60 Va.L.Rev. 1109, 1251 (1974); Titus, Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A and the Uniform Commercial Code, 22 Stan.L.Rev. 713, 742 (1970). Based on reasons of public policy, the doctrine of strict liability was evolved to place responsibility on the party responsible for the injury occurring. In this case, it falls upon defendants. The judgment should be affirmed.