Hill v. OSJ of Bloomfield, LLC
Case Details
- Judge(s)
- DiPentima; Moll; Bear
- Status — whether other courts must follow this ruling
- Published
- Procedural Posture — the stage the case had reached
- appeal
Related Laws
No specific laws identified for this ruling.
Outcome
The appellate court reversed the trial court's judgment for the plaintiff and directed judgment for the defendant, finding insufficient evidence to support liability under either the mode of operation rule or the affirmative act rule in this premises liability case involving boxes falling from a store shelf.
Excerpt
The plaintiff, a business invitee of the defendant company, brought a prem- ises liability action against the defendant, seeking damages for personal injuries she sustained when two empty boxes fell off a shelf and struck her in the head and shoulder as she was walking in an aisle of the defendant's store. After a trial to the court, the trial court rendered judgment for the plaintiff. The court applied the mode of operation rule enunciated in Kelly v. Stop & Shop, Inc. (281 Conn. 768), and concluded that the boxes fell and struck the plaintiff as a result of the defendant's negligence. The court determined that the store manager, M, and another employee, R, had been stocking merchandise in an adjacent aisle when a box on the top shelf of that aisle toppled over and into the boxes on the top shelf of the aisle in which the plaintiff was walking, thereby causing the boxes to fall off the shelf and onto the plaintiff. On appeal, the defendant claimed that the trial court improperly applied the mode of operation rule. Held that the evidence did not support the imposition of liability under the mode of operation rule or the affirmative act rule, under which proof of notice is not necessary because the defendant itself created the unsafe condition, as there was no evidence as to what caused the boxes to fall on the plaintiff: the plaintiff, relying on the mode of operation rule, failed to make out a prima facie case of negligence, as the record did not demonstrate that the defendant had a specific method of operation that was different from the general operation of a similar business, the only evidence about the regularity of any hazard came from M, who was unaware of merchandise ever falling onto a customer, the potential for which did not give rise to a regularly occurring or inherently foreseeable hazard, and the record was devoid of evidence that the plaintiff's injuries occurred within a limited zone of risk where the risk of injury was continuous or foreseeably inh
What This Ruling Means
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