A Cherry Hill Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant is entitled to a new trial in a slip-and-fall personal injury case, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday.
TRENTON -- A Cherry Hill Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant is entitled to a new trial in a slip-and-fall personal injury case, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The justices unanimously found that the trial court's instructions to the jury improperly included a burden of proof exemption that the state Supreme Court says is exclusive to self-service businesses like cafeterias and grocery stores where customers handle products and equipment.
A jury awarded Janice Prioleau $138,000 after she claimed she slipped and fell outside the restroom at the chain's South Jersey location during a rainstorm.
Prioleau didn't seek immediate medical attention but did visit the emergency room when she returned home to Delaware, claiming she'd experience pain, numbness or tingling in her back, arms and legs. She attended a few days a week for about two months, according to the ruling.
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Her attorney argued the employees had created the slippery conditions by tracking grease from the kitchen to the bathrooms they shared with restaurant patrons.
In this type of injury case, the customer typically has to prove the business was aware of the hazardous conditions. There's an exception, called the "mode-of-operation" rule, to the burden of proof that applies if the business's practices, or mode of operation, created the dangerous conditions.
The trial court instructed the jury to consider that doctrine as it deliberated, according to the ruling. The appellate court found the doctrine had been applied in error, reversed the decision and vacated the jury's judgment.
In the opinion, written by Justice Anne Patterson, the Supreme Court said the mere fact that the restaurant cooks with oil and grease that may have been tracked to customer areas doesn't warrant the mode of operation jury instruction. The court maintained that the doctrine is limited to self-service business models, which has included grocery stores and cafeteria settings where there is a "reasonable probability that a dangerous condition would occur."
"The distinction drawn by these cases is sensible and practical," Patterson wrote. "When a business permits its customers to handle products and equipment, unsupervised by employees, it increases the risk that a dangerous condition will go undetected and that patrons will be injured."
In a prior case involving a supermarket customer and a string bean, the court said "When greens are sold from open bins on a self-service basis, there is a likelihood that some will fall or be dropped on the floor. If the operator chooses to sell in this way, he must do what is reasonably necessary to protect the customer from the risk of injury that mode of operation is likely to generate..."
Glenn Montgomery, Prioleau's attorney, said Monday he'd hoped the high court would expand the boundaries of the mode-of-operation rule.
The attorney for KFC could not immediately be reached for comment.
"If the accident occurred because restaurant employees tracked oil and grease from the kitchen to the restroom area, it resulted from the preparation of food in a kitchen area off limits to patrons, a component of the business in which customers played no part," Patterson wrote. "While the evidence might support a finding that a plaintiff need not show actual or constructive notice because the condition was created by defendant or its employees, it does not implicate the mode-of-operation rule."
In ordering a new trial, the court determined that the improper mode-of-operation rule may have influenced the jury's decision.
Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
