LORETO LUCIANO DE SALAS vs. SAN MIGUEL BREWERY CAR (Page-7)

manufacture of bottles that one of them does not have the same or equal strength as the
others; certainly, in its brief, appellee made the observation;

"The first thing to remember in cases such as this is that, according to
a long line of decisions, covering explosions of beverages, it is a well-settled
rule that the mere fact of an explosion does not create aprimafacie case of
negligence on the part of defendant bottling company particularly where the
defendant no longer had possession or control of the bottle;" Brief, p. 2;

but this observation does not seem to be exactly or always correct; a reading of the
jurisprudence cited by the appellee, pp. 13 to 24 of its brief, does not show that such a rule
exists or that the same is well settled, it appears that in all and in each one of the decisions
cited, the Court took into account the facts of the particular case to adjudge them, and so it
must be, because the question of negligence being purely a question of fact, it is difficult to
come up with definite rules; thus, making a summary in chronological order, we see:

1. In the ease of Wheeler vs. Laurel Bottling Works (1916) 71 SO
744, the facts are as follows:

"Wheeler was the owner of a restaurant in the city of Laurel,
Mississippi, and at his restaurant among other things, he sold soft drinks,
including coca-cola which was manufactured, bottled, and sold, by
defendant. He kept the bottled drinks in an ordinary ice box. Sometime after
1:00 o'clock a.m., he went to the ice box to see about his coca-cola since he
kept his restaurant opened all night; upon his lifting the lid of the box, a
bottled of coca-cola exploded, projecting a small piece of glass into his right
eye. From the injury inflicted, it became necessary to remove the eye ball. It
was the custom of plaintiff-appellant to place 50 pounds of ice in the box and
then to stack about four (4) dozen bottles of coca-cola upon and around the
ice;"

The court ruled to the contrary, saying:

"The bottle at the time of the injury was not under the control or
management or manufacturer. The unfortunate occurrence appears to be one
of those unforeseen accidents for which defendant appellee under the facts of
the case, should not be held liable. The proof is not satisfying that defendant
made use of bottles that were too weak to stand the pressure put upon them
in the ordinary process of bottling, and this one instance of a bottle bursting
under the circumstances disclosed by the record, is in itself, not sufficient to
charge defendant-appellee with conducting its business in an unusual or
unsafe fashion or making use of unsafe appliances;"

2. In the case of Loebig's Guardian vs. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.
(1935) 81 SW 2nd, 910, the facts are as follows: