Donoghue V Stevenson - Facts

Facts

May McAllister was born on 4 July 1898 in the Glasgow parish of Cambuslang; she was the daughter of James and Mary Jane McAllister. McAllister married Henry Donoghue on 19 February 1916 and had four children with him; however, all but one, Henry, were born prematurely and lived longer no longer than two weeks. The couple separated in 1928 and McAllister, now Donoghue, moved into her brother's flat at 49 Kent Street, Glasgow.

On the evening of Sunday 26 August 1928, during the Glasgow Trades Holiday, Donoghue took a train to Paisley, Renfrewshire, located seven miles east of Glasgow; the journey would have taken around thirty minutes. In Paisley, she went to the Wellmeadow Café. At approximately 20:50 a friend, who may have travelled with Donoghue, was with her and ordered a pear and ice for herself and a Scotsman ice cream float, a mix of ice cream and ginger beer, for Donoghue. The owner of the café, Francis Minghella, brought over a tumbler of ice cream and poured ginger beer on it from a brown and opaque bottle labelled "D. Stevenson, Glen Lane, Paisley". Donoghue drank some of the ice cream float. However, when Donoghue's friend poured the remaining ginger beer into the tumbler, a decomposed snail also floated out of the bottle. Donoghue claimed that she felt ill from this sight, complaining of abdominal pain. According to her later statements of facts (condescendences), she was required to consult a doctor on 29 August and was admitted to Glasgow Royal Infirmary for "emergency treatment" on 16 September. She was subsequently diagnosed with severe gastroenteritis and shock.

The ginger beer had been manufactured by David Stevenson, who ran a company named after his identically-named father and produced both ginger beer and lemonade at 11 and 12 Glen Lane, Glasgow, less than a mile away from the Wellmeadow Café. The contact details for the ginger beer manufacturer were on the bottle label and recorded by Donoghue's friend.

Donoghue subsequently contacted and instructed Walter Leechman, a local solicitor and city councillor whose firm had acted (albeit unsuccessfully) for the claimants in a factually similar case, Mullen v AG Barr & Co Ltd, less than three weeks earlier.

Despite the ruling in Mullen, Leechman issued a writ on Donoghue's behalf against Stevenson on 9 April 1929. The writ claimed £500 in damages, the same amount a claimant in Mullen had recovered at first instance, and £50 in costs. The total amount Donoghue attempted to recover would be equivalent to at least £27,000 in 2012.