Perry v. Kelford Coca-Cola Bottling Co.
| Decision Date | 06 March 1929 |
| Docket Number | 83. |
| Citation | 146 S.E. 805,196 N.C. 690 |
| Parties | PERRY v. KELFORD COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Hertford County; C. C. Lyon, Emergency Judge.
Action by R. W. Perry against the Kelford Coca-Cola Bottling Company. From the judgment, defendant appeals. Modified and affirmed.
In action for damages sustained by purchaser drinking bottle of Coca-Cola containing glass, testimony as to purchase of similar bottle shortly before trial held competent.
Evidence did not justify award of punitive damages against manufacturer of Coca-Cola containing broken glass.
Winston Matthews & Kenney, of Windsor, for appellant.
A former appeal in this case is reported in 196 N.C. 175, 145 S.E. 14. It was there held that the evidence objected to was competent. The defendant now insists that at the last trial additional evidence was offered and improperly excluded. True, one or two exceptions not appearing in the record of the former appeal are noted and brought forward in the appellant's brief, but all are to be determined by the application of one principle: Evidence of the occurrence of similar events is probative on an issue as to whether a like occurrence happened at another time. "Evidence of similar occurrences is admitted where it appears that all the essential physical conditions on the two occasions were identical; for under such circumstances the observed uniformity of nature raises an inference that like causes will produce like results, even though there may be some dissimilarity of conditions in respect to a matter which cannot reasonably be expected to have affected the result." 22 C.J. 751, § 840; Pritchett v. Southern R. Co., 157 N.C. 88, 72 S.E. 828; Leathers v Blackwell, etc., Tobacco Co., 144 N.C. 330, 57 S.E. 11 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 349; Dorsett v. Clement-Ross Mfg Co., 131 N.C. 254, 42 S.E. 612. Testimony as to the purchase of the bottle a few days before the trial was competent, if not as substantive evidence at least as corroborative of the plaintiff's theory that the presence of glass in the bottle which he purchased was not an unforseeable contingency, but one of a series of similar occurrences preceding and following the date of the alleged injury.
Exceptions were entered to the court's refusal to dismiss the action and to give certain of the defendant's prayers for instructions; but as to these an inspection of the record fails to disclose any reversible error, except in reference to punitive damages.
On the cross-examination A. C. Johnson, general manager of the defendant company, testified: ...
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