SPONTANEOUSLY EJECTING CORK CAUSES LAWSUIT PUTTING THE ‘PAIN’ IN CHAMPAGNE
For many people, preparing for the New Year’s countdown is the most exhilarating part of the holiday season. You tune your TV to the Times Square ball drop, hand out party hats, confetti, and noisemakers, and meticulously line up some champagne flutes. What’s left to do? Pop open the champagne! There are many partiers who pop the cork with enthusiastic and careless abandon, while others point the bottle away from their faces and anxiously twist the cork until they hear those bubbles surge to the surface. Turns out, while the latter practice may be slightly less fun, it’s certainly the safer approach. On April 8, 1978, Charles J. Murray was injured when a natural cork stopper spontaneously ejected from a bottle of previously unopened Almaden Blanc de Blancs champagne and struck him in the left eye. He was preparing to serve the bubbly to a party of 40 people, so he placed 12 bottles on a rolling cart and removed the foil and wire retainer from three or four bottles — including the one that eventually injured him. Once he started to roll the cart toward the guests, the cork shot out of the bottle all on its own. Due to the severity of his injury, Murray sued Almaden Vineyards, Inc., National Distillers and Chemical Corporation, and Carbo, Inc., alleging that they were responsible because they failed to include a proper warning label on the bottle. The defendants, however, argued that the cork stopper did not and could not spontaneously eject unless Murray had handled the bottle improperly. The case was argued by both sides for two years, but eventually, Murray won. Almaden
Vineyards now prints the following on its bottles: “WARNING: THIS BOTTLE IS UNDER PRESSURE. THE STOPPER WILL EJECT SOON AFTER THE WIRE HOOD REMOVAL. TO PROTECT AGAINST INJURY TO FACE AND EYES, POINT AWAY FROM SELF AND OTHERS WHEN OPENING.” When it comes to bubbly-induced mayhem, the greatest potential trouble lies in the eye of the beholder — literally. With an estimated velocity of 60 miles per hour, uncontrolled corks do in fact fly faster than the blink of an eye. To avoid having to explain a not-so-fashionable eye patch at work on Monday, handle those fizzy drinks with care.
NATIONAL THANK YOU MONTH!
CHRISTINE KOEHLER OF KOEHLER AND RIDDICK, LLC
but she realized early on that she didn’t truly enjoy the work. She then moved on to work for AIDS Legal Project, an organization that gave her the opportunity to litigate on behalf of people who were HIV positive or had AIDS. Working with these clients is one of the most rewarding experiences of Christine’s career, yet she still felt she could make the biggest difference in the courtroom. After attending a criminal defense seminar, Christine decided that she wanted to be a public defender. But, after struggling to find a job in the public sector, she opted to work at a large DUI firm to learn from the best teachers she could find. Ironically, Christine is now a judge in the same county she tried to find a job in as a public defender. Regarding this jocose turn of events, Christine explains, “Often, when you aren’t getting the job that you desperately want, it’s easy to get frustrated. But my not getting a job as a public defender in DeKalb County at first and becoming a judge years later in that same county goes to show that your initial plans often don’t work out for a reason.” In addition to serving as an associate part-time magistrate judge and a partner at Koehler and Riddick, LLC, Christine likes to periodically shift her legal focus. While she still loves to take on criminal defense cases, she also does ethics representation for other attorneys and has recently started to represent victims in both criminal and civil cases. With her wealth of experience and her innate desire to learn, Christine’s reputation as one of the best attorneys in the state precedes her. If you or someone you know needs any advice, information, or representation, we highly recommend giving Christine a call at 770-513-0113.
Because January is National Thank You Month, our team wanted to highlight someone we are particularly grateful for this year: Christine Koehler. As a partner at Koehler and Riddick, LLC, Christine is considered one of Georgia’s premier criminal defense attorneys. While she has been practicing criminal defense for 23 years, her journey to get to this role is quite fascinating.
Following her graduation from Georgia State College of Law in 1995, Christine started working for an insurance defense firm,
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