Meshbesher v. Channellene Oil & Manufacturing Company
| Decision Date | 05 February 1909 |
| Docket Number | 16,005 - (249) |
| Citation | 119 N.W. 428,107 Minn. 104 |
| Parties | JACOB MESHBESHER v. CHANNELLENE OIL & MANUFACTURING COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the municipal court of Minneapolis to recover $500 damages for the manufacture and sale by defendant of impure oil for cooking purposes. The case was tried before Waite, J., who made findings of fact and as conclusion of law found in favor of plaintiff for $99. From an order denying defendant's motion for judgment or for a new trial, it appealed. Affirmed.
Sale of Impure Oil -- Pure Food Statute -- Liability.
The defendant sold to a retail grocer in the city of Minneapolis a quantity of oil, knowing that the same would be sold at retail to his customers for use in cooking their food. The plaintiff purchased of the grocer one quart of the oil for such purpose, which consisted of forty per cent. of mineral oil and sixty per cent. of cotton seed oil. It was injurious to health. His food, which he ate, was cooked in the oil, and he was thereby made seriously ill. Action to recover damages for the injuries so sustained. Held:
1. That the findings of fact of the trial court are responsive to the issues made by the pleadings, are supported by the evidence and sustain the conclusion of law that the defendant is liable to the plaintiff for such damages.
2. Our pure food statute is intended to protect the health of all of the people of the state, and the plaintiff is within the class for whose benefit it is intended; and this case falls within the rule that, where a statute for the benefit or protection of individuals prohibits the doing of an act or imposes a duty, any person who violates the prohibition or neglects the duty is liable to those injured thereby for damages resulting proximately from such violation or neglect.
3. The plaintiff's injuries resulted proximately from defendant's failure to comply with the statute, for it sold the oil to the grocer, knowing that it was to be sold by him to his customers for food purposes. Teal v. American Mining Co., 84 Minn. 320, followed.
4. The fact that the defendant did not know that the oil was impure does not affect the question of its liability, for it was bound to know whether the article which it sold for food was wholesome and complied with the statute.
Thomas C. Daggett, for appellant.
George Harold Smith, for respondent.
Appeal from the order of the municipal court of the city of Minneapolis denying the defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the findings of fact and conclusions of the trial court, or for a new trial.
The here material allegations of the complaint are to the effect following: The defendant is, and at all the times hereinafter mentioned was, engaged in the manufacture and sale to the public and retail dealers of sweet oil to be used as a food and for cooking purposes, and represented the same to be healthful and pure and adapted for use in cooking food. On or about February 9, 1908, plaintiff purchased from one Jacob Neiman, a retail grocer in the city of Minneapolis, one quart of sweet oil, so manufactured for sale by defendant and placed by it with Neiman for sale to the public, and used the same in cooking his food. The sweet oil so purchased by plaintiff was in fact impure and poisonous, and not adapted for cooking purposes, which facts were well known to defendant; but nevertheless defendant maliciously carelessly, wantonly, and with a reckless disregard to human life, manufactured and placed the impure and poisonous oil on the market for sale, and caused the same to be sold to the plaintiff as pure and healthful cooking oil. The plaintiff, relying on such representations of the defendant, so purchased the impure and poisonous sweet oil and used it in cooking his food, which he ate, and thereby he was poisoned and made dangerously ill, to his damage in the sum of $500. The answer in effect was a general denial.
The issues were tried by the court without a jury, and findings of fact made in substance as follows:
In the city of Minneapolis during the month of February, 1908, defendant sold and delivered to one Jacob Neiman a quantity of oil, which was designed and intended to be used for mingling with human food in the process of cooking the same. Neiman was there engaged in the retail grocery trade. The oil was sold by the defendant to Neiman with the knowledge that the same would, in the regular course of his business, be sold at retail to his customers for use in cooking their food. Neiman sold and delivered to plaintiff one quart of the oil for such purpose. The oil was used in cooking the plaintiff's food, and in such use was mingled with it. The plaintiff partook of such food and of the oil mingled therewith. The oil at all times stated consisted of about forty per cent. of mineral oil and sixty per cent. of cotton seed oil. The mineral oil, when mingled in such proportion with cotton seed oil, is and was at all such times injurious to health, when taken into the human stomach; and the oil so sold and used, with the mineral oil therein contained, is and was at all such times injurious as stated. The plaintiff was made ill by so eating the food cooked in such oil, whereby he sustained damages in the sum of $99. Other than stated, the trial court found the allegations of the pleadings not true. As a conclusion of law judgment was entered for the plaintiff for such damages.
The statute (R.L. 1905, § 4362) providing for a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict has no application to a trial by the court without a jury. Hughes v. Meehan, 84 Minn. 226, 87 N.W. 768; Noble v. Great Northern R. Co., 89 Minn. 147, 94 N.W. 434; Young v. Grieb, 95 Minn. 396, 104 N.W. 131. The motion and notice of appeal are therefore irregular, and can be given effect only as an order denying a motion for a new trial.
The first contention of the defendant, in support of its claim that the trial court erred in denying its motion for a new trial, is to the effect that the action was brought to recover damages for the breach of an express warranty of the purity of the oil, of which there was no proof, but the court permitted a recovery upon an implied warranty; hence there was no evidence to sustain the allegations of the complaint. The assumption upon which the defendant's conclusion rests is not justified by the record. The complaint is indefinite in some respects, and it is not entirely clear that it does not attempt to allege more than one cause of action. But no motion was...
To continue reading
Request your trial