Court Opinion

ID: 9543089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:42:00.61469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:38.824238
License: Public Domain

LATIMER, Justice.
I dissent.
It seems to me that the Chief, Justice, in stating the facts on exclusive control, has not set forth some of the facts beneficial to respondent. The jury having returned a verdict in his favor the facts and inferences most favorable to him should be used as the basis for the decision. *590However, the important question in this case is one of law and not of fact.
If we are to limit the doctrine of res ispa loquitur in bottled drink cases to a class where there is an absence of opportunity for tampering, then we deny recovery to practically every consumer. Bottlers of soft drinks very seldom deliver direct to consumer and whenever a sale is made through retail channels or through vending machines there is an opportunity to tamper if someone decides to become an impractical jokester. The majority opinion concedes that a cap can be removed and replaced without detection except by an expert. In addition, a bottle must be left open for some considerable length of time before the liquid will lose its effervescent qualities. How then can a purchaser reasonably determine that a bottle has been opened and resealed? In this case respondent claims that the cap was fairly hard to remove and that it came off just the same as other caps he had removed from bottles of Coca Cola. This is evidence from which the jury could conclude that the bottle had not been previously opened, and, there is no evidence to the contrary. There is merely speculation that it was possible someone might have removed the cap, placed the flies in the solution, recapped the bottle, placed it in, the vending machine without knowledge as to the individual who might be the victim of the prank.
Rather than venture into the realm of speculation and surmise, I prefer to adopt the concept of those authorities which hold that in cases involving bottled drinks the question of whether or not the deleterious substance was in the bottle at the time of delivery, is a jury question if the substance is in the bottle at the time Of purchase and there is no evidence that the bottle has been previously opened. It must be realized that the same rule of law would be applicable had the contents of the bottle been poisonous. Had that situation been presented to us, I have grave doubts we would have concerned ourselves with tricksters.
WADE, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of .LATI-MER, J.