In Rose v. Port of N.Y. Auth., 61 N.J. 129 (1972), the plaintiff claimed his injury was sustained when he walked into or was struck by an automatic glass door at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Law Division judge in that case denied the Port Authority’s motion to dismiss at trial, and plaintiff prevailed before the jury. This court reversed, finding insufficient evidence of both negligence and proximate cause, but the Supreme Court reinstated the verdict.
The plaintiff in Rose had called an employee of the door’s manufacturer to explain the mechanical operation of the door � that is, to educate the jury. The plaintiff also presented his own engineering expert. That expert described several unsafe aspects of the door’s design and installation, but was unable to offer an opinion that any of the suggested defects had in fact occurred or were responsible for the accident.
Rose does not explicitly say which proofs were enough to meet the plaintiff’s burden to present a prima facie case. There is no express holding in Rose either that the plaintiff did or did not require the expert testimony he presented in order for the jury to be permitted to draw an inference of negligence.
In Rose, Justice Mountain wrote:
Here the occurrence bespeaks negligence. Members of the public passing through automatic doors, whether in an airport, office building or supermarket do so generally without sustaining injury. What happened to the plaintiff here is fortunately unusual and not commonplace. It strongly suggests a malfunction which in turn suggests neglect. See 61 N.J. at 136-37.
While that description fits this case as well, it does not answer the question whether plaintiff’s expert in that case was essential to the availability of a res ipsa charge.
In Rose, Justice Mountain discussed Wollerman v. Grand Union Stores, Inc., 47 N.J. 426 (1966), at some length. There, the plaintiff slipped and fell on a string bean on the floor of a supermarket. The Court reversed a dismissal at the end of plaintiff’s case, reasoning that the customer was not in a position to determine what negligence had occurred, and the defendant, who was in a better position to do so, could fairly be called on “to explain, if he wishes to avoid an inference by the trier of the facts that the fault probably was his.” 47 N.J. at 430. Justice Mountain applied the same reasoning to the automatic door in Rose:
That the door did not function properly seems highly probable, but it should not be the burden of the plaintiff to come forward with proofs as to the precise nature of the probable malfunction. His expert witness did suggest several things that might have gone wrong; he was hardly in a position to pinpoint the actual operational failure that did occur. Such a task might very likely be insuperable. Under such circumstances it is fair to call upon the defendant for an explanation. Se 61 N.J. at 137.
