In a premises liability case involving a slip and fall, the New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to a business owner on the basis that the court failed to apply the mode-of-operation standard to the facts of the case. In Aly v. A&H Bagels (unpublished), the Appellate Court determined that the self-service nature of the bagel store required the court to examine the store’s duty of care differently because of the inherent hazard caused by that type of business operation.
In this case, Defendant owned a bagel shop where customers purchased products, such as sandwiches, coffee in cups, and juices in closed containers, at a counter. Customers then carried their purchases to seats to eat before disposing of their trash in a receptacle. Basically, customers waited on themselves after making their purchases. Plaintiff was seriously injured after she slipped and fell in a brown substance near a trash can.
Under New Jersey premises liability law, a business owner owes business invitees like plaintiff a duty of reasonable care to guard against any dangerous conditions on the property that the owner either knew about or should have discovered. Included within that standard of care is the owner’s duty to conduct a reasonable inspection to discover latent dangerous conditions. Under the mode-of-operation standard, when the very nature of the business’ operation creates the hazard, an inference of negligence is created that shifts the burden of proof to the owner to negate the inference by submitting evidence of due care. The plaintiff is thus relieved of the burden of proving that the owner had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition. Instead, the owner must demonstrate that it did all a reasonably prudent man would do in light of the risk of injury the nature of the business entailed.
Defendant moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motion, holding that the mode-of-operation rule did not apply in this setting and that even if it did, A&H had met its burden because they did all that a reasonably prudent shop would do considering the risk of injury the shop’s mode of operation entailed. Plaintiff then appealed, arguing that the trial court failed to consider the appropriate mode-of-operation standard. The Appellate Division agreed that the trial court had indeed erred in failing to apply the mode-of-operation standard to defendant’s self-service bagel shop.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court examined the history of the mode-of-operation principle and found that if was applicable to cases involving self-service settings. In such self-service businesses, prior cases established that owners were required to anticipate the hazard of a dangerous condition being created by the carelessness of customers or employees, which imposed a duty on owners to use reasonable measures to promptly detect and remove any hazards. Failure to do so results in the application of an inference of negligence. To negate this inference, owners must submit evidence of due care.
Looking the facts of this case and the case law, the Court held that A&H’s format of self-service requires the court to contemplate its duty through a mode-of-operation standard. The Court determined that the fact A&H’s customers waited on themselves after service created a situation where the burden of proof should shift to defendant to show that they acted reasonably. It also held that the dangerous condition caused by the brown substance was a foreseeable risk given the self-service aspect of defendant’s business. The Court further found that the trial court failed to adhere to the summary judgment standard of giving all reasonable inferences to the non-moving party when it granted A&H’s summary judgment motion. Accordingly, the trial court’s order was reversed and the case was remanded for trial.
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