Plaintiff Cvetanka Neceva was selecting an item from a supermarket shelf when she turned and tripped over the partially outstretched leg of a kneeling employee stocking shelves. She suffered injuries and sued the supermarket, claiming that the outstretched leg of the employee was a dangerous condition. The issue in Neceva v. Stop and Shop, 2025 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2794 (App. Div. Dec. 31, 2025) was whether the outstretched leg of a kneeling supermarket employee could constitute a dangerous or hazardous condition.
The plaintiff had been shopping at a Stop and Shop in Ridgewood and had been selecting an item from a refrigerated aisle. She was aware of a store employee about one foot from her getting boxes and putting “stuff” in the refrigerator. She knew that the employee was in a kneeling position, stocking shelves. After retrieving her item, Plaintiff turned to the right and tripped over the employee’s leg, causing injury. She does not claim that there was any other condition on the premises that caused her injury.
At the close of discovery, the defendant supermarket filed for a summary judgment. It argued that the store’s stocking practices were consistent with normal business operations and that the employee’s leg did not create a dangerous or hazardous condition. The plaintiff had produced a report from a human factors expert who opined that the employee’s leg created a trip hazard and that plaintiff would have had no reason to expect such a hazard in her path of travel. The defendant also argued that his report constituted an inadmissible net opinion.
The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant store. The trial court judge stated that there was nothing about this situation which could be construed to be outside the normal operation of the supermarket. The court noted that shoppers could be kneeling down, trying to obtain an item on a lower shelf and moving back and forth. The judge found that employees moving back and forth and moving things onto shelves and off the shelf would appear to be “nothing outside the normal practice of the supermarket.” Hence, the trial court judge found that no juror could determine that this situation created a dangerous condition.
This decision was appealed to the Appellate Division.
The Appellate Division agreed with the trial court “that the employee’s extended leg did not create a dangerous condition subjecting Stop and Shop to liability because it did not create an unreasonable risk of harm and there was no defect in the property itself.” The Court further noted that “plaintiff’s failure to heed the presence of the employee who was performing a routine supermarket activity – where there was no visual or lighting impairments – does not create a dangerous condition of the premises.”
Additionally, the Appellate Division held that even if there was a risk of harm, it would have been foreseeable and avoidable by a customer exercising reasonable care. It found that all conditions were “open and obvious” to a reasonable invitee and, thus, no specific warning was required. Hence, the Appellate Division agreed that the trial court’s decision was correct in concluding that “the injury suffered was not legally attributable to any breach of duty on the part of Stop and Shop or its employees.”
As for the human factors expert’s opinion, the Appellate Division also agreed with the trial court decision that his testimony was not reliable and that the trial court did not make a mistake in barring his opinion. The Court noted that the expert referenced “no methodology or scientific materials that were subjected to peer review and publication.” Further, his conclusions were not supported by “identified standards, scientific data, or industry regulations.”
Finally, the Court held that the trial court was also within its discretion to find that the subject matter – an employee kneeling or extending a leg while stocking shelves in a well-lit open supermarket – was not beyond the common knowledge of lay jurors.” The Appellate Division stated that “[e]mployees kneeling to stock shelves is a routine, expected sight at supermarkets.” Therefore, the Court concluded that the trial court judge also did not make a mistake in determining that expert testimony was neither necessary nor admissible.
Thus, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court decision, dismissing the lawsuit.