Macon Coca-cola Bottling Co v. Crane

• Decision Date: 13 March 1937
• Docket Number: No. 25887.,25887.
• Citation: 190 S.E. 879,55 Ga.App. 573
• Parties: MACON COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO. v. CRANE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

55 Ga.App. 573

190 S.E. 879

MACON COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO.

v.CRANE.

No. 25887.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

March 13, 1937.

Rehearing Denied March 30, 1937.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Where an event "is unusual and extraordinary in its nature, and there is nothing to indicate an external cause, but the peculiar character of the accident is sufficient within itself to indicate that it must have been brought about by negligence on the part of some one, and where the most reasonable and probable inference which can be rationally drawn from the happening of such an event is that it would not and could not have taken place had not the person charged with furnishing or maintaining the instrumentality causing the accident been guilty of the particular acts or omissions set forth by the plaintiff as constituting the actual cause, then the jury is authorized to apply the rule of evidence known as the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, in determining whether or not the accident must have been thus occasioned." (a) "In such a case it would be no answer, when the maxim that the thing spoke for itself is invoked, to say that when the injury resulted, the thing was not in the possession, power, or control of the manufacturer" or person furnishing the instrumentality which caused the injury.

2. "All that the plaintiff should be required to do in the first instance is to show that the defendant owned, operated and maintained, or controlled and was responsible for the management and maintenance of the thing doing the damage" or supplied the thing for resale to the public; "that the accident was of a kind which, in the absence of proof of some external cause, does not ordinarily happen without negligence. When he has shown this, he has cast a burden upon the defendant, who may then proceed to show that the accident was occasioned by vis major, or by other causes for which he was not responsible."

3. Under the evidence the jury was authorized to apply the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in the present case; to find that the plaintiff was not negligent; that the defendant did not show that it was not its negligence that caused the explosion of the bottled beverage or that the accident was occasioned by vis major or by other causes for which it was not responsible; and, in the absence of an explanation by the defendant, the jury was authorized to return a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

FELTON, J., dissenting.

Error from City Court of Macon; Earl W. Butler, Judge.

Suit by Robert Crane against the Macon Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and defendant brings error.

Affirmed.

The plaintiff brought suit against the defendant for damages on account of injuries alleged to have been sustained from the explosion of a bottle of Coca-Cola which, in the performance of his duties, he had placed in an icebox in the restaurant of his employer. He alleged that the bottled drink had been obtained by his employer from the defendant, and that he placed the same in the icebox in the usual and customary manner, and was free from negligence, and that the bottle was negligently carbonated, so that when its temperature was reduced by being placed in the icebox the bottle exploded, and that if the carbonation had been regulated in accordance with the advertisement of the defendant that the beverage was harmless, the explosion would not have occurred. The defendant denied the material allegations of the petition and charged that the injuries of the plaintiff were the result of his own negligence. By amendment the plaintiff alleged that the bottle used was insufficient and contained thin places, so that it was not capable of withstanding, on handling in a normal way, the pressure of the carbonating gas, and that if it had been suited to the purpose for which it was used, and had been in proper condition, a proper charge of carbonation would not have exploded the bottle. In the trial of the case the plaintiff relied on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. The evidence is not here set out, but the main facts arediscussed in the opinion. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial, and by amendment added a ground in elaboration of the general grounds. The court overruled the motion, and the defendant excepted.

Jos. W. Popper, of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

E. W. Tipton and Hall & Bloch, all of Macon, for defendant in error.

SUTTON, Judge.

The maxim res ipsa loquitur, as was said by Judge Hill in Cochrell v. Langley Manufacturing Co., 5 Ga.App. 317, 322, 63 S.E. 244, 247, "has been a prolific inspiration to much useless and wasted juridic erudition, " and it was added in the same case: "Practically, as we said in the Monahan case [Monahan v. National Realty Co.], 4 Ga.App. 680, 62 S.E. 127, the doctrine is simply a rule of circumstantial evidence which permits an inference to be drawn from proved facts. It furnishes a working basis for reasonable hypothetical conjecture, and gives scope for legitimate reasoning by the jury. The philosophy of the doctrine is stated in section 5157 of the Civil Code of 1895 [section 38-123 of the Code of 1933]: 'In arriving at a verdict, the jury from facts proven, and sometimes from the absence of counter-evidence, may infer the existence of other facts reasonably and logically consequent on those proved.'" This doctrine has been sanctioned for many years in other jurisdictions, but strangely enough did not find recognition in any of the reports of this state in personal injury cases until in Chenall v. Palmer Brick Company, 117 Ga. 106, 43 S.E. 443, 445. That case involved a suit against the master by a servant, and, notwithstanding that relationship, the Supreme Court held that the maxim could be applied. It was there said, with reference to deductions that might be made by the jury, and quoting from the old English case of Scott v. London & St. Katherine Docks Co., 3 Hurl. & C. 596: "There must be reasonable evidence of negligence, but where the thing is shown to be under the management of the defendant or his servants, and the accident is such as, in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by defendant, that the accident arose from want of care." That deduction that might be made by the jury under this maxim of res ipsa loquitur has been referred to in many jurisdictions as a presumption of law, and in many others it has been designated as an inference of fact, for a full and interesting discussion as to which the reader may consult the elaborate annotations following the case of Glowacki v. Northwestern Ohio R. & P. Co., 53 A.L. R. 1486. That it is not a substantive rule of law, but only a rule of evidence, was pronounced by' the Supreme Court of this state when the Chenall case, supra, was again before that court in 119 Ga. 837, on page 842, 47 S.E. 329, 330, where it was said: "The maxim res ipsa loquitur is simply a rule of evidence. The general rule is that negligence is never presumed from the mere fact of injury, yet the manner of the occurrence of the injury complained of, or the attendant circumstances, may sometimes well warrant an inference of negligence. It is sometimes said that it warrants a presumption of negligence, but the presumption referred to is not one of law, but of fact. It is, however, more correct and less confusing to refer to it as an inference, rather than a presumption, and not an inference which the law draws from the fact, but an inference which the jury are authorized to draw." These principles are restated and applied to questions of negligence in Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Danneman, 25 Ga.App. 43 (1, 2) 102 S.E. 542; Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Shipp, 41 Ga.App. 705 (2), 154 S.E. 385; Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Dean, 43 Ga.App. 682, 160 S.E. 105. As distinguished from a presumption of law, which may be overcome, the inference which the jury is authorized to draw as to negligence, when once drawn, is never overcome. The only inquiry thereafter is: Whose negligence is it? And the defendant may satisfy the jury that it was not his negligence that caused the injury, although the cause of the occurrence, as well said by Judge Russell in Sinkovitz v. Peters Land Co., 5 Ga.App. 788, 795, 64 S.E. 93, 96, "might still be involved in unsolvable mystery." The above would seem to make unnecessary any consideration of presumptions of law or of how they may be overcome, and to leave us to examine the present case with reference to the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur authorizing the jury to draw an inference of negligence. In the Sinkovitz case, supra, which involved a suit brought by one not a servant of the defendant, Judge Russell, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of this state, said:

"Upon the second appearance of the Chenall case in the Supreme Court (119 Ga. 837, 47 S.E. 329), the particular question involved was how far the application of the maxim, 'res ipsa loquitur, ' was affected by the fact that the plaintiff was a servant of the defendant, and thereby had assumed the risks incident to his employment, and to the negligence of his fellow servants. In so far as the opinion in the later case, delivered by Justice Cobb, appears to confine or limit the application of the maxim it must be borne in mind that the learned judge was dealing only with that specific point. But there was no retraction or modification of the original holding (where the relation of master and servant does not exist) that 'ordinarily extraordinary and external causes may be treated as the exception to be established by the defendant.'" Judge Russell then lays down the burden which rests on the plaintiff, quoting from the Chenall case when it first appeared in, the Supreme Court, 117 Ga. 106, 109, 43 S.E. 443: "All that the plaintiff should be required...