In which town did a decomposing snail in a bottle of ginger beer once make history and how?

Senior Moments

She should have ordered a slug of whisky It all began in a café in Paisley in 1929. The scene is Mr Minchella's café in the town's Wellmeadow Place, where a Mrs Donoghue is relaxing with an ice cream soda - ginger beer and ice cream. Her ginger beer comes in a misted glass bottle. As last drops are poured out, the rotting corpse of a snail swirls out of the bottle and onto the ice cream. The nauseating sight, and Mrs Donoghue's horrified realisation that she had been inadvertently swilling decomposing snail juice repulses her. She brings an action for damages, to compensate her for her distress and revulsion. Had Mrs Donoghue herself been the purchaser the course of the law would have run quite differently. Instead of Donoghue v Stevenson, there would have been Donoghue v Minchella, an unremarkable breach of contract case, distinguished only by its picturesque facts, in which a café owner was sued for selling a tainted product to a customer. But Mrs Donoghue had no contractual right: it was her friend who had bought the beer and who had the contract with Mr Minchella. Her friend could not sue, because she (or he - the reported case is perhaps diplomatically coy on this point) had suffered no personal harm or distress. So Mrs Donoghue sued Stevenson, the ginger beer manufacturer instead, for negligence. The result and the wider implications are described on http://www.lawscot.org.uk/whatis/case5.html May 19 04, 1:29 AM

Stew54

Yes, possibly the most famous case in British legal history. I believe there is even a memorial to the case at the site of the cafe, and there's a film reconstruction called The Paisley Snail used as a teaching aid. May 19 04, 10:26 AM

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