The 'snail in the bottle' case is retold constantly, and the retellings blur the dates. The judgment itself is public and can be opened directly, which is what the benchmark relies on.
The record below shows how the question was constrained so that only one date survives the clue set.
The question as published
A Scottish shopper became ill after drinking part of a bottled soft drink that a companion had bought for her in a Paisley cafe in 1928, and she sued the manufacturer rather than the seller. Five law lords finally decided her appeal in London. On what date was that judgment delivered?
- Answer
- 26 May 1932
- Confidence
- High — the judgment transcript and two reporting series agree
Sources opened and read
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 (26 May 1932) — BAILII transcript
British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) • Institutional records • Primary
Dates the judgment in the court's own Latin form and ties it to the archived parliamentary judgment paper.
Open sourceDonoghue v Stevenson, [1932] AC 562 — law report reproduction (PDF)
Università degli Studi di Trieste teaching repository • PDF documents • Secondary
Independent reproduction of the Appeal Cases report giving the same date and the page-562 citation.
Open sourceDonoghue v Stevenson — Case report, 1932 SC (HL) 31
Scottish Council of Law Reporting • Institutional records • Primary
The body responsible for publishing Session Cases gives the same date, confirming it across two reporting traditions.
Open sourceDonoghue v Stevenson Digital Resources
Scottish Council of Law Reporting • Reference databases • Primary
Provides the underlying papers, so the facts in the clues can be checked against pleadings rather than summaries.
Open sourceSnail in the Bottle — The Claimant's Case
Scottish Archives for Schools (National Records of Scotland) • Archived webpages • Secondary
Adds detail from the process papers and flags a spelling discrepancy that a careless solver could propagate.
Open sourceNational Records of Scotland catalogue, Court of Session process CS252/2299
National Records of Scotland • Government records • Primary
Shows the case file survives in a national archive, so the chain reaches a holding institution rather than stopping at published reports.
Open source
Searches that were run
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 decided 26 May 1932 House of Lords Lord Atkin neighbour principle
Web search • 4 September 2026 • Answer exposed: Yes
BAILII transcript PDF; law report reproduction of [1932] AC 562; Scottish Council of Law Reporting case report; university copies of the judgment
snail ginger beer Paisley cafe 1928 House of Lords appeal judgment date
Web search • 4 September 2026 • Answer exposed: Yes
Scottish Council of Law Reporting digital resources; Scottish Archives for Schools; general encyclopaedia coverage
1932 SC (HL) 31 Session Cases report Scottish appeal five law lords
Web search • 4 September 2026 • Answer exposed: No
Scottish Council of Law Reporting case report page; National Records of Scotland catalogue entry for the process papers
What the investigation showed
What made the question difficult
A judgment has several competing dates: the incident in 1928, the hearings, the interlocutor in the Court of Session, and the day the House of Lords finally spoke. Only the last one answers the question.
Which searches failed
Searching by the Session Cases citation alone reached the Scottish report but not a page that dated the decision plainly; the transcript header was needed.
Which source proved decisive
The judgment transcript, whose header reads "Die Jovis, 26 Maii, 1932" and cites the Parliamentary Archives reference for the judgment paper.
How ambiguity was removed
Clue C07 pins the date to the delivery of judgment, and two independent reporting series print the same 26 May 1932.
What an AI browsing agent might get wrong
Reporting 26 August 1928 (the incident), citing the earlier [1931] UKHL 3 parallel reference as if it were a separate decision, or misreading the Latin date line.
Remaining limitations
One supporting copy of the Appeal Cases report is a university teaching PDF rather than the publisher's own edition; the transcript and the Scottish report carry the weight.
Recommended future improvements
Consult the Parliamentary Archives judgment paper HL/PO/JU/4/3/873 directly and add archived copies of each cited page.
Read the full case study
The complete record — clue matrix, evidence cards, validation log and the structured JSON output — is published on the case study page.
Open Landmark Judgment Benchmark