Court Opinion

ID: 9604330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:19:53.16713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:21.165353
License: Public Domain

Given, Judge,
dissenting:
In my opinion the facts in this case bring it within the principles followed in the recent case of Keffer v. Logan Coca-Cola Bottling Works, Inc., 141 W. Va. 839, 93 S. E. 2d 225. In that case, we held that the res ipsa loquitur rule was not applicable, for the reason that “the bottle causing the injury may have been mishandled by some one other than an employee of the bottling company”. Notice that the basis of the holding was that the bottle “may have been”, not that it actually was, “mishandled by someone other than an employee of the bottling company”. In that case, the defendant delivered cases of Coca-Cola to the retail dealer. The driver delivering the Coca-Cola placed the cases in a wareroom, where they remained until the bottles therefrom were placed in a cooler or sold to a customer. Persons other than employees of defendant were permitted in the ware-room.
The facts controlling in the instant case are plain. Defendant bottling company sold and delivered cases of bottled Coca-Cola to the Borden Company, usually about six cases each week. One of the hundred or more employees of the Borden Company, Josephine Steffy, received the cases for the Borden Company. Usually, two cases were left near a vending machine, owned by the Borden Company, until the bottles therefrom were placed in the machine, which machine automatically dispensed a bottle of Coca-Cola upon the insertion in the machine of a proper coin. Miss Steffy, the employee of the Borden Company, testifying for plaintiff, stated, in effect, that *694she was the only person who placed bottles in the machine; that usually, upon each delivery by defendant, two cases of Coca-Cola were left beside the machine, and the other cases were placed in a “cupboard” back of the “storeroom”, until needed, when they were, by her direction, carried by the janitor back to a place near the machine, where they remained until the bottles therefrom were placed in the machine by Miss Steffy; that the machine is operated in a “general hallway for the use of all employees at Borden’s and anybody else that happens to be in the plant”, including drivers other than those of defendant or of the Borden Company; and that the machine is not watched at all times. It is not shown how long the cases placed in the hall remained there before the bottles of Coca-Cola were placed in the machine. Thus, it will be seen that, precisely as in the Keffer case, actual possession as well as absolute control of the bottles of Coca-Cola had passed from defendant to the Borden Company. Moreover, it is definitely shown that possession and absolute control of the very bottle in question had passed to the plaintiff who, after receiving it from the machine, opened it in such manner and at such time as she elected.
I need cite no authority that the rule of res ipsa loquitur is usually applied only where the thing causing the injury is under the exclusive control of the defendant. The majority say that in the instant case they are bound by the holdings in Parr v. Bottling Works and Blevins v. Bottling Works. Those cases were decided as being controlled by Webb v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., 121 W. Va. 115, 2 S. E. 2d 898. Those cases are similar to the instant case. There is, however, a marked material distinction. The foreign substance causing the injury in the Webb case was so imbedded in the product sold as to make it impossible for it to have been placed therein except in the process of manufacture. Such is not true in the instant case. Any one of the hundred or more persons using the hall wherein the cases of Coca-Cola were left, between the time of delivery of the *695cases by defendant and the placing of the bottles in the vending machine, could have removed certain bottles from the cases and replaced others therein, could have uncapped a bottle and placed glass therein and recapped the bottle; or, in so far as the record reveals, such acts could have been done by the plaintiff in this case. It is not important that no proof of such acts was tendered. The opportunity to have done so is admitted. The “opportunity” is the test as to whether exclusive control by the defendant was broken.
Perhaps the extension of the rule to a field covering cases like the Webb case and the Holley v. Purity Baking Company case, 128 W. Va. 531, 37 S. E. 2d 729, 167 A.L.R. 648, can be justified on the theory of continued or extended control by the manufacturer, though that seems unnecessary, since the proof in such cases constitutes strong proof of actual negligence on the part of defendant. However that may be, I do not believe the rule should now be extended to cover a case where exclusive control has clearly and definitely passed from the defendant and where there is not the least doubt that persons not responsible to defendant had “opportunity” to have committed the act which resulted in the injury.
Being of the view indicated, I respectfully dissent.