The First Department reinstated the complaint labeled as negligence and dismissed the complaint labeled as negligence/res ipsa loquitor, in Ianotta v. Tishman Speyer, which was decided on December 11, 2007. The court noted that plaintiff failed to raise an issue of fact as to whether defendant had notice of the alleged defective condition of the elevator in which she was injured, since the incidents noted in the elevator service report log were not similar to the accident giving rise to this lawsuit. However, the court found that facts did warrant application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, since plaintiff testified that the elevator doors were open for a second or two before she entered the elevator right behind her co-worker and that another co-worker had to pry the doors open to free her, and the safety edge on the elevator was not a rubber bumper that plaintiff could have touched or put pressure on to cause the doors to retract but a device that used infrared beams to detect the presence of passengers. Since the public did not have access to the mechanism which would cause the doors to retract, the greater probability of responsibility for the alleged malfunction is on the defendant.
The court reinstated the negligence cause of action and dismissed the negligence/res ipsa cause of action in order to clarify that without a cause of action for negligence there is no viable cause of action to which to apply the doctrine of res ipsa. It is not a separate theory of liability but merely a common-sense application of the probative value of circumstantial evidence.
There was a lengthy dissent which argued that the doctrine of res ipsa cannot save the deficiencies in plaintiff's proof of negligence. The dissenting judge said that plaintiff was resorting to the mere happening of the accident as proof of negligence, and said that cannot be supported by New York law.