DONOGHUE STEVENSON [1932] AC 562 Lord Macmillan:

Lord Macmillan: My Lords, the incident which in its legal bearings your Lordships are called upon to consider in this appeal was in itself of a trivial character, though the consequences to the appellant, as she describes them, were serious enough. It appears from the appellant’s allegations that, on an evening in August 1928, she and a friend visited a café in Paisley, where her friend ordered for her some ice cream and a bottle of ginger beer. These were supplied by the shopkeeper, who opened the ginger beer bottle and poured some of the contents over the ice cream, which was contained in a tumbler. The appellant drank part of the mixture and her friend then proceeded to pour the remaining contents of the bottle into the tumbler. As she was doing so a decomposed snail floated out with the ginger beer. In consequence of her having drunk part of the contaminated contents of the bottle the appellant alleges that she contracted a serious illness. The bottle is stated to have been of dark opaque glass, so that the condition of the contents could not be ascertained by inspection, and to have been closed with a metal cap, while on the side was a label bearing the name of the respondent, who was the manufacturer of the ginger beer of which the shopkeeper was merely the retailer.