McDaid v. Aztec West Condominium Association, 234 N.J. 130 (2018). As Jutice Albin stated in the first two sentences of today’s opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court, “Res ipsa loquitur is an equitable doctrine that allows, in appropriate circumstances, a permissive inference of negligence to be drawn against a party who exercises exclusive control of an instrumentality that malfunctions and causes injury to another. The rationale for the res ipsa inference is that the injury-causing occurrence ordinarily would not happen in the absence of negligence and that the party controlling the instrumentality is in the best position to explain what went wrong and why.”
The Court faced the question of whether res ipsa loquitur should apply to an elevator door that opened and closed on plaintiff, a resident in the condominium operated by the defendant condominium association. Invoking de novo review as to the purely legal issue presented, the Court found that the doctrine did apply, and reversed a summary judgment for defendants that the Law Division had entered and the Appellate Division had affirmed.
Justice Albin found largely dispositive the Court’s decision about res ipsa loquitur in Jerista v. Murray, 185 N.J. 175 (2005). That case applied res ipsa in the context of an automatic door in a supermarket that struck a customer as she was entering the supermarket. Jerista built on Rose v. Port of New York Authority, 61 N.J. 129 (1972), which applied res ipsa where an automatic glass door at an airport struck the plaintiff as he was entering the terminal. Justice Albin stated that the Court “cannot discern a rational distinction between the two classes of cases– elevator doors and automatic doors. Just as, based on common knowledge, an automatic door ‘probably does not close on an innocent patron causing injury unless the premises’ owner negligently maintained it,’ Jerista, 185 N.J. at 197 [emphasis in original], the same is true of a malfunctioning elevator door.”
The lower courts had relied on Gore v. Otis Elevator Co., 335 N.J. Super. 296 (App. Div. 2000). That case had required a plaintiff injured by an elevator door “to bring forth affirmative evidence that tends to exclude” causes other than negligence for the malfunctioning of the door. But Justice Albin observed that Jerista had disapproved of the notion that an injured party must “exclude other possible causes of the injury.” Jerista rejected that principle as stated in Jimenez v. GNOC, Corp., 286 N.J. Super. 533 (App. Div. 1996), on which Gore in turn relied. The Court also noted that many other jurisdictions (though not all) “have held that close on a passenger causing injuries give rise to a res ipsa inference of negligence.”
Since res ipsa applied, the grant of summary judgment to defendants was improper. Justice Albin noted precedent stating that res ipsa can be overcome where a defendant offers proofs “so overwhelming that they destroy any reasonable inference of negligence.” That was not so here, as two different inspectors found that the door’s electric eye was not functioning properly, and the condominium association had a duty to ensure that the elevator door was operating correctly. The defense had evidence of its own to offer, but that was for trial before a jury.