19 S.E.2d 306 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1942
The evidence authorized a verdict for the plaintiff. It was error to grant a nonsuit.
The defendant filed its answer in which it admitted that it bottled and sold coca-colas through the vending machine from which the plaintiff alleged that she purchased the coca-cola drunk by her. *849 The defendant further alleged that in the bottling of such coca-cola its servants and employees exercised reasonable and ordinary care and caution, in that such coca-cola was bottled in its bottling plant in accordance with the latest improved and most scientific methods of bottling, and that the latest improved machinery was used; that when the coca-cola was bottled it was carefully inspected by its servants, and when the bottle of coca-cola left its plant it was free from any defects, and contained no harmful and injurious substances in it; that if a safety pin was in the bottle of coca-cola, as alleged by the plaintiff, it was there without the defendant's knowledge, and was not discoverable by the defendant in the exercise of reasonable and ordinary care in the process of bottling and inspection.
The case came on for trial, and at the conclusion of the plaintiff's evidence the judge, on the motion of the defendant, granted a nonsuit, and the plaintiff excepted.
It is the rule that on a motion for nonsuit the evidence, unless it is vague and contradictory, is to be construed most favorably to the plaintiff. Highsmith v. National LinenService Cor.,
Under the above facts the jury could have found that the safety pin did not get into the bottle of coca-cola after it had been bottled and capped by the defendant; that is, that the condition of the bottle of coca-cola was not changed from the time it was bottled and capped by the defendant and placed in the vending machine until it was purchased and consumed by the plaintiff. In these circumstances the jury would have been authorized to find that the safety pin got into the bottle of coca-cola as the result of some one's negligence at or before the time it was bottled and capped. The evidence would have authorized the jury to find, under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, that the safety pin was bottled and capped in the bottle of coca-cola as the result of the defendant's negligence. See Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Dean,
There is no merit in the contention of the defendant that there *851
was no evidence from which the jury would be authorized to infer that the plaintiff's illness was the result of becoming poisoned by drinking the bottle of coca-cola which contained the corroded brass safety pin. The case at bar is not like Armour Co. v.Gulley,
It appearing that a verdict for the plaintiff would have been authorized, the court erred in granting a nonsuit.
Judgment reversed. Sutton and Felton, JJ., concur.