Ruffin v. Coca Cola Bottling Co.

• Decision Date: 26 May 1942
• Citation: 42 N.E.2d 259,311 Mass. 514
• Parties: RUFFIN v. COCA COLA BOTTLING CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

311 Mass. 514

42 N.E.2d 259

RUFFIN

v.COCA COLA BOTTLING CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 26, 1942.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Walsh, Judge.

Personal injury action by Robert D. Ruffin against Coca Cola Bottling Company. Verdict for plaintiff. On defendant's exception to the denial of its motion for a directed verdict.

Exception sustained and judgment for defendant.

Before FIELD, C. J. and DONAHUE, DOLAN, COX, and RONAN, JJ.

J. W. Sullivan, of Lynn, and J. J. Mulcahy, of Boston, for defendant.

No argument nor brief for plaintiff.

DOLAN, Justice.

This is an action of tort to recover compensation for personal injuries sustained in circumstances described below. The case was tried to a jury, who returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and now comes before us on the defendant's exception to the denial of its motion for a directed verdict in its favor.

The jury would have been warranted in finding the following facts: On August 2, 1938, ‘around seven o'clock in the evening,’ the plaintiff went to ‘Kenny & McMurray's Delicatessen Store’ located on Main Street, in Woburn, for the purpose of buying a bottle of coca cola to drink. He had been in the habit of going there daily to get something to drink, and had bought coca cola there many times. In accordance with his ‘usual practice * * * [he] put a nickel on the counter and reached into the container and * * * [took] out a bottle of coca cola,’ and told Kenny that he was ‘taking’ it.

The container was about four by two and a half feet and was made of sheet metal. ‘There were different kinds of beverages in the container with ice.’ The coca cola was ‘chilled as usual.’ The plaintiff did not inspect the bottle when he took it out of the container. He ‘wiped the water off the bottle and reached for the opener on the right side of the container. When he was within three or four inches of the opener, the bottle of coca cola which he was holding by the middle, exploded in his hand, breaking a little below the neck of the bottle.’In consequence, his right index finger was cut. ‘Before the explosion he did not touch the cap of the bottle to the opener.’ In taking the bottle from the container the plaintiff ‘did not push it up against or touch the container.’ He ‘didn't take it carefully’; it did not make any difference to him whether it touched anything or not. As he last left his testimony was he ‘wouldn't say’ that he knew whether the bottle hit ‘another bottle or piece of tin’ when he lifted it from the container; but he was sure that he ‘did not strike the edge of the container.’ After the accident the bottle was in two or three pieces. ‘There was a cap on the neck of the bottle laying underneath the opener.’

One of the proprietors of the store (Kenny) testified that he sold coca cola which he bought from the coca cola company. At about the time of the accident he was buying ten or twenty cases a week. Each case contained twenty-four bottles. In the course of delivery the cases, which were laid in rows on the defendant's truck, were placed by the truck driver on top of one another in the back room of the store. As they were needed the bottles were taken out of ‘the case and put * * * in the cooler.’ As he placed them in the cooler Kenny looked at them to see that they were ‘all right.’ When he put them in the container he handled them carefully. And when he was taking them out ‘he took them out easy.’ There were between ‘two and three’ cases of bottles in the container. Kenny's partner probably ‘filled it last.’ Kenny had not touched the container on the night of the accident.

No citation of authorities is needed to support the familiar principle that ordinarily the mere happening of an accident is not...