Court Opinion

ID: 9810390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:49:00.391003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:53.979819
License: Public Domain

Barnhill, J.,
dissenting: The plaintiff has failed to offer any evidence of other instances of bottles exploding under “substantially similar circumstances.” The plaintiff took up a bottle of Eoyal Crown Cola which was in her home. While she was carrying it to her mother to be opened it exploded. This alone is not evidence of negligence and there is no explanation in the evidence as to what caused the bottle to explode. If the plaintiff has failed to offer evidence that bottles manufactured and put on the market for sale by the defendant at approximately the same time exploded under substantially similar circumstances there is no evidence of negligence.
Witness Camp testified that in gathering Coca-Cola bottles he went to the grocery store of one McCord, reached underneath the ice box where there was a crate containing 24 bottles of Eoyal Crown Cola; that an empty Coca-Cola bottle was lying on top of the case of Eoyal Crown Colas; that one of the bottles of Eoyal Crown Cola exploded but that he did not know whether in getting the Coca-Cola bottle he struck the other bottle or not. The explosion of this bottle was under substantially different circumstances than the incident of which the plaintiff complains.
The witness Sharpe testified that a Eoyal Crown Cola salesman came to his place of business and proceeded to put Eoyal Crown Cola in the ice box which contained soft drinks for the use of his customers; that he was five or ten feet from the box; that as the salesman was putting bottles in the ice box he heard an explosion; that upon investigation he found that two Eoyal Crown Cola bottles were broken; that on a former occasion another bottle exploded while the salesman was putting the bottled drinks in the ice box; and that he did not know whether the salesman struck the bottles he had in his hand against others or not. These are not similar instances.
The manager of the defendant corporation testified that if bottles are hot and are put in cold water with syrup in them they will explode; that a drastic change in temperature will cause an explosion. There is no evidence that the bottle which plaintiff had was subjected to a *555drastic change of temperature or that it, while hot, was put in cold water. The manager further testified that bottles in the manufacturing plant on the machine would, at times, explode. Certainly a bottle actually on the machine being cleansed, filled and capped, is not being handled in a manner similar to that in which the plaintiff was handling the one she had.
For the reasons stated I am unable to agree that the court below committed error in granting the motion to dismiss as of nonsuit.
WiNborne, J., concurs in this opinion.