Smith v. Peerless Glass Co.

• Decision Date: 01 June 1932
• Citation: 259 N.Y. 292,181 N.E. 576
• Parties: SMITH v. PEERLESS GLASS CO., Inc., et al. (two cases).
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

259 N.Y. 292

181 N.E. 576

SMITH

v.PEERLESS GLASS CO., Inc., et al. (two cases).

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 1, 1932.

Actions by Adeline Smith and by William H. Smith against the Peerless Glass Company, Inc., and the Minck Brothers & Co., Inc. Judgments of the Trial Term entered upon the verdict of a jury in favor of plaintiffs in the sums of $37,500 and $224, respectively, were affirmed by the Appellate Division (233 App. Div. 252, 251 N. Y. S. 708), and defendants appeal.

Judgments against the defendant Peerless Glass Company, Inc., affirmed, and judgments against defendant Minck Brothers & Co., Inc., reversed, and a new trial granted.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second department.

Osmond K. Fraenkel and Arnold J. Brock, both of New York City, for appellant Peerless Glass Co.

Frank H. Hiscock, of Syracuse, and Gerald Donovan and Joseph Henry Cohen, both of New York City, for appellant Minck Bros. & Co.

Alfred W. Meldon, of New York City, and Maurice Brandt, of Far Rockaway, for respondents.

CROUCH, J.

The plaintiffs in the actions are father and daughter. It will be convenient to discuss only the daughter's action. The plaintiff, a waitress or clerk at her father's wayside soda and cigar stand, lost the sight of one eye by the explosion of a soda water bottle. The bottle was made by the defendant Peerless Glass Company, Inc., and sold by it to the defendant Minck Bros. & Co., Inc. The latter filled it with soda water and put it on the market.

If the filled bottle may be regarded as an assembled product of which the bottle itself was a component part, the approach to the applicable rule of law may be made by way of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N. Y. 382, 111 N. E. 1050, L. R. A. 1916F, 696, Ann. Cas. 1916C, 440. By analogy, the bottler will be in the position of the defendant in that case and the maker of the bottle in that of the anonymous maker of the wheel. The liability of the bottler will then be ruled clearly enough by the law of that case, and the evidence only need be considered. Not so, however, as to the maker of the bottle; for, while the opinion perhaps foreshadowed his liability, the point was left open. ‘We are not required, at this time, to say that it is legitimate to go back * * * and hold the manufacturers of the component parts.’ Page 390 of 217 N. Y.,111 N. E. 1050, 1053. The doubt seemed to hang on the problem of causation. Whatever was shadowy then in respect to the principles both of negligence and of causation has vanished in the light of subsequent decisions. Wanamaker, New York, v. Otis Elevator Co., 228 N. Y. 192, 126 N. E. 718;Rosebrock v. General Electric Co., 236 N. Y. 227, 140 N. E. 571;Sider v. General Electric Co., 203 App. Div. 443, 197 N. Y. S. 98, affirmed 238 N. Y. 64, 143 N. E. 792, 34 A. L. R. 158;Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, 255 N. Y. 170, 181, 174 N. E. 441, 74 A. L. R. 1139.

There emerges, we think, a broad rule of liability applicable to the manufacturer of any chattel, whether it be a component part or an assembled entity. Stated with reference to the facts of this particular case, it is that, if either defendant was negligent in circumstances pointing to an unreasonable risk of serious bodily injury to one in plaintiff's position, liability may follow though privity is lacking. Cf. The American Law Institute, Restatement of the Law of Torts, sections 265 and 266.

The case against the maker of the bottle is that on its surface were little ridges, known as striae, higher than the rest of the bottle. While the existence of striae does not always or necessarily weaken a bottle as against ordinary constant pressure, either internal or External, it is nevertheles regarded as a defect and as a dangerous point. It is principally so because such a bottle, subjected to contact with cold, undergoes an uneven contraction which starts a slight crack and thereupon down out under the pressure of the charged water. That is what happened here, or at least the jury could so find. The result of such a blow-out may be and in the present case was serious. The maker knew the purpose for which the bottle was to be used, knew that bottles sometimes exploded and may readily be presumed to have known that when used for its intended purpose this bottle would be subjected to contact with cold, and that it would, if striated, be apt to explode. There was, therefore, a duty to use reasonable care. Reasonable care consists among other things in making such inspections and tests during the course of manufacture and after the article is completed as the manufacturer should recognize as reasonably necessary to secure the production of a safe article. Substantially the only test made was an examination by means of a polariscope of 6 bottles out of every batch of 2,880 for the sole purpose of checking the process of annealing. Defendant admits that no specific examination was made to detect striations. It says there was no practicable...