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Szalontai v. Yazbo's Sports Cafe5/26/2005
," the trial court refused to apply the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur and, instead, granted the property owner/operator defendants' motion for an involuntary dismissal.
Plaintiff appealed and the Appellate Division affirmed in an unpublished per curiam decision. Szalontai v. Yazbo's Sports Café, No. A-2171-02T1 (App. Div. Nov. 18, 2003). Focusing on the first of the two issues before this Court on certification, the Appellate Division found that plaintiff's request for an extension of the discovery deadline after the mandatory arbitration hearing had been held was governed by the "exceptional circumstances" standard of Rule 4:24-1(c) and that plaintiff had not satisfied that standard. The Appellate Division succinctly stated that plaintiff's "failure to conduct discovery until after he lost at the arbitration was sufficient reason to deny his motion to extend discovery." Id. at 9-10. On the second issue before us - -- whether res ipsa loquitur applies here -- - the Appellate Division held that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case warranting the application of the res ipsa loquitur doctrine. According to the panel, "to implicate the res ipsa doctrine, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the accident that produced the plaintiff's injury was one which ordinarily does not happen in the absence of negligence." Id. at 15. The Appellate Division concluded that
he facts in this case do not meet that test [that the accident ordinarily does not happen in the absence of negligence]. The hole in the ground may have been present for any number of reasons which had nothing to do with the negligence of the property owner. The ground could have settled, the water table could have risen, or perhaps a water pipe broke in the vicinity. The point is that plaintiff simply did not demonstrate the accident could not have happened absent defendants' negligence. The record is absent of any reason why the ground collapsed under plaintiff's foot. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is therefore inapplicable.
[Ibid.]
We granted certification, 180 N.J. 454 (2004), and later requested that the parties submit supplemental briefs addressing the issue whether, under the circumstances of this case, a commercial establishment should have the burden of producing evidence to demonstrate the absence of negligence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division. In doing so, we reject plaintiff's claim that he was prejudiced by the application of our "Best Practices" which denied plaintiff leave to extend the discovery deadline and barred his late-tendered liability expert from testifying at trial. We also reject plaintiff's claim that, under the facts present here, he should have been allowed to avail himself of an adverse inference under the res ipsa loquitur doctrine.
II.
The mandate of Rule 4:24-1(c) could not be clearer: " bsent exceptional circumstances, no extension of the discovery period may be permitted after an arbitration or trial date is fixed." See also, Pressler, Current N.J. Court Rules, comment on R. 4:24-1 ("Exceptional circumstances rather than good cause must, however be shown if an extension is sought beyond the day of notice of an arbitration or trial date."). The requirement of a showing of "exceptional circumstances" in lieu of the earlier requirement of a showing of "good cause" was added to rule revisions we approved in 2000 and known as "Best Practices." Klock, N.J. Practice Court Rules Annotated, R. 4:24-1 ("This rule was completely rewritten as of September 2000 as a result of the adoption of the Civil Best Practices recommendations."). The leading commentator on our Rules of Court has explained:
T
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