Yates v. Coca-Cola Bottling Works

This was an action for damages for illness suffered by the plaintiff as the result of drinking some of the contents of a bottle of coca cola containing a partially decomposed fly or bug and some dirt or "grit,” which bottle of coca cola had been bottled by the defendant company and sold to a lunch wagon, from which plaintiff purchased it.

The action ‘was instituted in a Justice of the Peace Court where judgment for $200 was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. From which judgment defendant appealed to the Circuit Court, where the case was tried by the judge without a jury. The judge found in…