Court Opinion

ID: 9724740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:11:09.121065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:05.367634
License: Public Domain

Lynch, J.
(dissenting, with whom Nolan & O’Connor, JJ., join). I do not agree that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur permits the jury to impose liability on the defendant as a result of this unexplained accident. I start my analysis with what amounts to a legal truism — that the happening of an accident is no evidence of negligence, Wilson v. Colonial Air Transp., Inc., 278 Mass. 420, 425 (1932); DiLeo v. Eastern Mass. St. Ry., 255 Mass. 140, 142-143 (1926), and that a person lawfully on the premises controlled by another is entitled to recover for injuries caused by a defect, about which the person in control knew or should have known, Oliveri v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth., 363 Mass. 165 (1973).
It is on this legal framework that the common law has grafted the principle conveniently known as res ipsa loquitur. That principle permits the trier of fact to draw an inference of negligence when the accident is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen in the absence of negligence. The basis of the rule is the general knowledge or common experience of the community which courts recognize in the same way as in the case of judicial notice. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D comment d (1965).
The Restatement requires, in addition, that other responsible causes, including the conduct of the plaintiff and third persons, be sufficiently eliminated by the evidence, and that the indicated negligence be within the scope of the defend*811ant’s duty to the plaintiff. It appears to me that none of these preconditions have been met here.
Since all doors are designed to open and close, no inference of negligence can be drawn merely from the closing. The plaintiff offers no evidence of how the door was opened or how it was caused to close. Neither could the jury know whether the door was in the full open position or only partially open immediately before the accident. Although as an appellate court we look at only that evidence favorable to the plaintiff, it is instructive that the undisputed evidence was that the door had not malfunctioned in any way prior to the accident, that it operated satisfactorily immediately after the accident, and that it continued to be used for some time thereafter without modification or repair. Not only does common experience not lead to the conclusion that in these circumstances the door would not have closed without the negligence of the defendant, but on the contrary we know that manually operated overhead doors will close by themselves if not raised to the full open position. The evidence of the wooden debris and the spring mechanism relied on by the court adds nothing to the plaintiff’s case. Although the plaintiff testified that he did not see the wooden debris before the accident, there is nothing to suggest that the wooden debris was part of the door, or was in any way connected to the closing of the door. If we assume that the jury found that the debris was not present on the floor of the loading dock before the accident, and that they then inferred that the debris was dislodged by the closing of the door, there is still nothing to suggest that the debris played any part in the closing of the door rather than having been dislodged by the impact of the accident itself.
The testimony concerning the spring mechanism is similarly deficient. The meager testimony in regard to the spring was that the plaintiff saw a cable-type spring mechanism dangling to one side. This spring mechanism was not clearly identified as belonging to the door that caused the plaintiff’s injury. Even if we assume that it was located on that door, there was no testimony that: its condition was out of the ordi*812nary; it was related to the closing of the door; or, if it was not properly in place after the accident, such misalignment was a cause of the sudden closing rather than having been caused by the closing.
That a manually operated overhead door changes from some degree of open to closed is not an event that does not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence of the person in control of the premises. It might be otherwise if it could be established that the door was opened by someone for whose conduct the defendant was legally responsible. As the court notes, however, “[significant traffic passed through the warehouse during business hours. Nonemployees, as well as employees, opened and closed the loading dock doors.” Infra at 805.
If we assume that the door closed as a result of not being raised to its full height, an assumption that would be pure conjecture, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur does not aid the plaintiff because it is his responsibility to introduce evidence that would eliminate the conduct of a third person as a cause of the accident. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D (1) (b). Finally, the plaintiff’s proof fails to demonstrate the third requirement of the Restatement as well, that the defendant’s duty toward the plaintiff applies only to defects in the premises of which the defendant knew or reasonably should have known. Since there is no explanation of what caused this accident, there is no suggestion that the defendant failed in this duty. To conclude otherwise is not even applying an inference on an inference, but rather a conjecture on a conjecture.
For the reasons stated I respectfully dissent.