Mouse Mickey

The defense called Homer Marsh to the stand and pointed to a half-empty Coca-Cola bottle standing on a railing near the witness stand. Would a Coke with a dead mouse in it give a fellow recurring stomach spasms? Witness Marsh, a bacteriologist at University of Oklahoma medical school, said it would not. He had inspected the Coca-Cola Co.'s local bottling plant, admired its sanitary precautions and felt sure that no mouse, dead or alive, could have gotten into the bottle at the plant.

However it got there, Bacteriologist Marsh didn't think the mouse could do the drink any harm. With the air of a man about to demolish an argument, the plaintiff's lawyer got up to cross-examine. Would you drink it? he asked. Sure, said Witness Marsh calmly. The lawyer handed him Exhibit One. Homer Marsh gulped the liquid down. "Can't get the mouse down," he said apologetically.

After everybody had eaten lunch and the judge was satisfied that Homer Marsh was still none the worse, his honor tossed out the $8,000 damage suit against the Oklahoma Coca-Cola Bottling Co. The judge dismissed the jury. "I hope you have a nice meal tonight," said the judge, "... and a bottle of Coke."

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