The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that a plaintiff is entitled to a res ipsa instruction in an case in which an automatic door unexpectantly closed and caused injury. Because of that determination, the plaintiff was entitled to get by a summary judgment motion and have a jury decide the case.
More precisely, the Court put the issue this way: “whether the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur permits a jury to infer, based on common knowledge, that a supermarket’s automatic doors ordinarily do not malfunction and close on a customer unless negligently maintained by the store owner, or whether the res ipsa inference is preconditioned on expert testimony first explaining the door’s mechanics.”
The case arose from a malpractice action against an attorney who filed a premises suit on behalf of the plaintiff but allowed the case to be dismissed because of a failure to respond to discovery requests. When the plaintiff discovered the dismissal, she sued her attorney.