Falstaff Brewing Corp. v. Williams, 45648

• Decision Date: 30 March 1970
• Docket Number: No. 45648,45648
• Parties: FALSTAFF BREWING CORP. et al. v. Carrie Lee Colenburg WILLIAMS.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 620

234 So.2d 620

FALSTAFF BREWING CORP. et al. v. Carrie Lee Colenburg WILLIAMS.

No. 45648.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

March 30, 1970.

Frederick C. Berger, Natchez, for appellants.

Gwin & Gwin, Natchez, Daniel, Coker, Horton & Bell, John M. Roach, John B. Clark, Jackson, for appellee.

ROBERTSON, Justice.

The Appellee, Carrie Lee Colenburg Williams, filed her bill of complaint, an attachment in chancery, against Falstaff Brewing Corporation, Bluff City Distributors, Inc., and Charles McDonald in the Chancery Court of Adams County, Mississippi.

The chancellor rendered judgment for the appellee for $18,500 damages against Appellants, Falstaff Brewing Corporation and Bluff City Distributiors, Inc.; the bill of complaint was dismissed as to Charles McDonald only.

About 10 a. m. on Thursday, June 18, 1964, Appellee Williams, an employee of Bob's Eats, a cafe located on Highway 64 north of Natchez, opened a compartment of a beer cooler behind the bar of the restaurant by sliding back the flexible door. She and another employee had been instructed by the proprietor, Mrs. Elizabeth Aldrich, to bring some bottled Falstaff beer from the cooler behind the bar to a cooler in the restaurant side of the cafe. Before she touched anything, a bottle of beer exploded and a piece of glass made a three-fourth's inch cut across the cornea of her left eye. Even though she received very prompt surgery and continuous treatment thereafter, within a year she completely lost the sight of that eye and it had to be removed and replaced with a false eye.

The appellee charged in her bill of complaint that Appellant Falstaff Brewing Corporation negligently manufactured the bottle of beer that exploded in that it was bottled in such a way that the pressure within the bottle was too great or that Falstaff negligently used a defective bottle. She charged both Falstaff and Bluff City with negligently selling, handling and delivering the bottle that exploded in that it was jarred or jostled, thereby increasing the presure, or that the bottle was cracked and weakened in the process of delivering it. Alternatively, the appellee alleged that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applied, or that the appellants were jointly and severally strictly liable in tort for having manufactured, shipped, sold, handled and delivered the bottle in such a way that it was not reasonably safe for its intended use by human beings and in such a way that it was unreasonably dangerous for its intended use by human beings.

All of the defendants joined in one Answer. They admitted that on June 18, 1964, Bluff City Distributors, Inc., was the Falstaff distributor for Adams County, Mississippi, and that on occasions bottled Falstaff beer was sold and delivered to Bob's Eats on Highway 61 near Natchez. They denied any negligence on their part and charged that if there was an explosion that it 'was caused solely by the acts of the operators of Bob's Eats and/or the complainant, Carrie Lee Colenburg Williams.' In an amended answer, they charged that 'if any beer was placed in a cooler and/or allowed to freeze, it was done so by the owner of Bob's Eats, Mrs. Elizabeth Aldrich, and that these defendants had absolutely no control over any beer once it was in her control * * *.' They charged that an explosion, if any, 'was caused solely by the intervening acts of the operator of Bob's Eats * * *' or her employees.

Mrs. Aldrich testified that she regularly bought Falstaff beer from Bluff City Distributors of Natchez and that it was delivered in case lots on Monday and Friday of each week. It was placed by the Falstaff distributor, Bluff City, in the storeroom of the cafe. Each morning, Mrs. Aldrich would check to see which brand of beer needed replenishing, and she would personally move the beer from the storeroom to the cooler back of the bar, or she would instruct one of her employees to do so. She testified that the beer that appellee had been instructed to move on the morning of June 18th would have been placed in the cooler on June 17th. She stated that this transfer was carefully made and that none of the bottles was broken, cracked or jostled. Falstaff beer was always placed in the front portion of the left compartment of the cooler. Both Mrs. Aldrich and appellee positively testified that it was a bottle of Falstaff beer that exploded.

Dr. Charles Stern, an ophthalmologist of Natchez, Mississippi, testified that there was a three-fourth's inch cut through the cornea and the sclera. The iris and the ciliary body were prolapsed through the wound. He did not find any glass in the eye, and it was his opinion that a cut of this kind is usually made by a large piece of glass that hits the eye and then falls away.

Melvin C. Helbig, plant general manager of Falstaff in New Orleans, testified that Flastaff does use both new and used bottles but that in the long process of cleaning, sterilizing, filling, heating, crowning, and pasteurizing that any defective bottle would explode. Even if any defective bottle has gotten through the pasteurizer, then on the drop of about twelve inches into the case, that bottle would break. The cases go on a conveyor and are palletized in layers five to seven cases high; they are then ready for shipment either by rail or truck.

Appellants' counsel asked Mr. Helbig:

'And then your distributor comes here from Natchez, the distributor comes down there and picks the beer up in trucks and brings it back here?'

Helbig answered: 'Yes, we load it on his truck with fork lift trucks.'

Helbig stated that the process used by Falstaff was the accepted, approved and proper method of bottling beer, and that every bottle sent to and sold in Natchez went through that process.

Daniel J. O'Connell, a consulting engineer practicing in New York, was called by the appellants as an expert on glass and glass breakage. In response to a long hypothetical question (wherein appellants' counsel outlined the procedure used by Falstaff in cleaning, sterilizing, filling, pasteurizing, heating, crowning and casing bottles of beer) O'Connell answered that this was the normal and customary method of bottling beer. Other questions by appellants' counsel and O'Connell's answers were:

Q. Now, assume bottles were put in there and that bottle became frozen. Assume that the-upon the opening, no one touched that bottle of beer, now assume it was put in there, it wasn't broken when it was put in...