CLAIM FAILS.

Wairarapa Age, 6 July 1932, Page 5

CLAIM FAILS.

COPPER SULPHATE IN STOUT. DUNEDIN, July 5. Judgment was given by Mr. Bartholomew, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day in the case in which John Low claimed damages amounting to £lOl 8s from Wholesalers, Ltd., for an illness alleged to have been caused by drinking stout containing copper sulphate from a bottle in the Outrani Hotel. Plaintiff alleged that the presence of copper sulphate must have been due to negligence in washing the bottle before it was filled.

The Magistrate said that though there was a possibility that a dirty bottle might be used it could not be absolutely excluded. Negligence hal not been proved. It was a simple matter for anyone to have removed the crown top and replaced it apparentlv undamaged. It would be possible then for the copper sulphate to have been introduced after the bottle left the premises of the defendant company. It would be possible, for example, for the retailer to place the residue of the contents of several bottles into one bottle and seal it np as an apparently original bottle. The possibility of a bottle containing such a largo quantity of foreign matter being accidentally used in the bottling process was unconceivable. An attempt to attribute responsibility would be inerely a matter of speculation and not of legitimate inference. Judgment would be for defendants.—(P.A.)"