ESCOLA V. COCA COLA BOTTLING OF FRESNO case brief

ESCOLA V. COCA COLA BOTTLING OF FRESNO

• plaintiff injured when coke bottle broke in her hand

• P can’t prove any unreasonable conduct – used res ipsa loquitor to say that the broken bottle was evidence from which negligence could be inferred

• The majority affirms the trial court’s judgment for plaintiff on res ipsa loquitor grounds

• Judge Traynor, in his concurrence with the judgment, disagrees with the reasoning of the majority:

• Traynor says res ipsa loquitor not applicable because this is not a negligence case, but rather a strict liability case

• Traynor, unlike Posner, wants to move the court away from negligence and toward strict liability

• Doctrinally, these consumer cases are governed by an implied warranty of fitness between retailer and consumer, in which consumer sues retailer, and retailer sues manufacturer

• Why go through this? Instead, consumer should be able to hold manufacturer directly liable

• Traynor points to the food cases where manufacturers were held strictly liable

• At this point in time, consumers are far removed from manufacturers, but still use advertising to reach consumers

• POLICY: Deterrence argument – we want to reduce the level of accidents; the manufacturer is in much better position to make the product safe than is the consumer

• Loss spreading – an individual consumer is a bad loss spreader, as opposed to the manufacturer, who can spread the costs to the product price for all consumers

• Similar to Cardozo’s opinion in MacPherson