High Court rules in favor of Coca-Cola over a case on bad soda claims

Coca-Cola Company has won a lawsuit case in which 60 residents had sued them demanding compensation for allegedly taking bad soda.

The High Court in Busia dismissed the case with Justice Kiarie Waweru ruling that the complainants lacked proof of the claims.

According to Justice Waweru, there was no proof of contamination as none of the bottles of soda the complainants claimed had foreign matter was presented to an independent body for analysis. 

The judgment read in part, “The plaintiffs, in this case, did not ensure that the evidence, the bottles and the contents were secured and the same submitted for analysis. They also did not prove that there was contamination.” 

Richard Bwire, Zablon Barasa and Stephen Serulo were the plaintiffs who also represented 57 others that they drank the soft drink with between 2011 and 2014.

They sued Coca-Cola Company as first defendant, Coca-Cola Central, East and West Africa Limited as second defendant and Equator Bottlers as the third defendant. 

The plaintiffs had demanded a compensation of Sh750,000 for each in general damages for allegedly suffering abdominal pains, vomiting, general body malaise and passage of loose stool.

“It is evidently clear that none of the plaintiffs has proved his or her claim on a balance of probabilities. The role of the first and second defendants is clear, it is facilitation of the third defendant’s production of the beverages. Having said so, each claim by each plaintiff is dismissed with costs,” the judge declared In a 10-page ruling.