If 16- year old Sherry Collins had known what was going to happen to her when she stayed home with the flu, she probably would have gone to school instead. She had made some toast and was attempting to open a brand new jar of strawberry jelly, when the jar shattered in her hands and nearly severed her index finger.
When laboratory tests on the broken glass failed to find any defects in the jar, it appeared that Sherry would not be able to receive any compensation for the permanent damage to her hand. That's when our hard work and dogged determination came into play.
Ordinarily, to recover money in a products liability case, the injured person must be able to show that the product had a specific defect that was in existence at the time the product was manufactured or while it was in the retail chain, before coming into the hands of the consumer. The victim must further show that the defect was unreasonably dangerous and indeed caused the injury.
In Sherry's case, the manufacturer of the jar performed a microscopic examination of the fragments and reported no specific defect. We hired an expert metal lurgist from the University of Connecticut for an independent study of the fragments. His conclusion was essentially the same - no specific defect could be found. However, we believed that Sherry was an innocent victim and that along the chain from the manufacturer of the jar, to the bottler and distributor of the jam, to the supermarket that sold the product, she was entitled to recovery.
Further we felt that each of the parties should contribute toward her recovery. We went to the library and began digging through the law books. After intensive and extensive research, we discovered that under certain conditions Connecticut law allows an injured person to recover money even when a specific defect cannot be proved. If the product fails in a way that is not to be expected under normal use, and this failure causes an injury, the victim may recover even though he or she cannot prove a specific defect.
This is known as the doctrine of Resipsa loquitur, which means the thing speaks for itself. In other words, since glass jelly jars should not fracture when used in a normal way, the fact that this jelly jar did fracture is sufficient to raise an issue for a jury to decide if the jar in question was defective. Rather than have a jury decide the issue, the manufacturer, the bottler, and the reseller all chose to contribute to Sherry's financial settlement.
*Some names and details have been changed to protect confidentiality. While we can't guarantee the same results; we can assure you the same effort.