Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.
Court	Supreme Court of California
Full case name	Gladys Escola, Respondent, v. Coca Cola Bottling Company of Fresno (a Corporation), Appellant.
Decided	July 5 1944
Citation(s)	24 Cal.2d 453, 150 P.2d 436
Case history
Prior action(s)	Appeal from a judgment upon a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff
Subsequent action(s)	none
Holding
Judgment for plaintiff affirmed under res ipsa loquitur.
Court membership
Chief Judge	Phil S. Gibson
Associate Judges	John W. Shenk, Douglas L. Edmonds, Jesse W. Carter, Roger J. Traynor, B. Rey Schauer, Jesse W. Curtis
Case opinions
Majority	Gibson, joined by Shenk, Curtis, Carter, Schauer
Concurrence	Traynor
Edmonds took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 24 Cal.2d 453, 150 P.2d 436 (1944), was a decision of the Supreme Court of California involving an injury caused by an exploding bottle of Coca-Cola. It was an important case in the development of the common law of product liability in the United States, not so much for the actual majority opinion, but for the concurring opinion of California Supreme Court justice Roger Traynor.

Plaintiff Gladys Escola was a waitress in a restaurant. She was putting away glass bottles of Coca-Cola when one of the bottles spontaneously exploded in her hand. She suffered a deep five-inch cut, which severed the blood vessels, nerves, and muscles of the thumb and palm of the hand.

The top portion of the bottle, with the cap, remained in her hand, and the lower portion fell to the floor but did not break. The broken bottle was not produced at the trial, as the pieces had been thrown away by an employee of the restaurant shortly after the accident. Escola, however, described the broken pieces, and a diagram of the bottle was made showing the location of the "fracture line," where the bottle broke in two. One of Coca-Cola's delivery drivers was called as a witness by plaintiff, and he testified that he had seen other bottles of Coca-Cola in the past explode and had found broken bottles in the warehouse when he took the cases out but that he did not know what made them blow up.

Escola was represented at trial by legendary litigator Melvin Belli, then in the early stage of his career. He later acknowledged in his own autobiography that he did not then fully comprehend that it would become a far-reaching landmark case. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, following the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.

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