expert testimony

Plaintiff Mecca & Sons Trucking Corp. sued J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. over a shipment it claimed was damaged while in the possession of J.B. Hunt.  Because the seal on the food-grade shipment was broken, the customer had rejected the shipment.  The issue in Mecca & Sons Trucking Corp. v. J.B. Hunt Transp., Inc., 2024 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 990 (App. Div. May 30, 2024) was whether Mecca’s employee of 40 years could offer an opinion on the standard of care for transporting a sealed container of a food-grade substance across the country.

Mecca had been hired by ADM Logistics to transport and deliver 20 sacks of Fibersol, which is a soluble dietary fiber used in foods, drinks, and supplements, in a sealed container from New Jersey to Illinois.  The sacks of Fibersol were made of polyurethane and tied at the top so the Fibersol would not fall out.  Further, the Fibersol was packed inside a shipping container sealed with an exterior lock.  The seal has a specific lock to stop unauthorized personnel from accessing the load and attached to the seal is a number that corresponds to a pickup number.  Mecca’s employee testified that “seals are common in the industry and are not to be broken under any circumstances by another other than the receiver at the time of delivery, and if the seal is broken, the load was tampered with.”

When the defendant J.B. Hunt took possession of the shipment it received, it received a bill of lading and acknowledged receipt of the shipment at the point of origin in good order.  The bill of lading referenced the seal number.   J.B. Hunt transported the sealed container via train from New Jersey to Landers, Illinois where it arrived still sealed.  An inspection of the container in Landers showed that the seal remained intact.  The container remained in J.B. Hunt’s possession for 4-5 days in its yard in Landers before another entity who was not a party, F&S Logistics, attempted to deliver the shipment to its final destination.

When the container arrived at its final destination, the customer, Parke Toll, rejected the delivery because the container seal was broken, although none of the 20 sacks of Fibersol were examined or determined to have been opened or compromised, nor were their contents tested for damage or adulteration.  Although the bill of lading did not contain express language that the seal must be intact upon delivery, according to the customer, it was its policy, as an entity that deals with food products to attempt to always maintain a good seal record and reject shipments that arrive with a broken seal.  Therefore, the truck was resealed and returned to defendant’s truck yard.  The entire shipment of Fibersol was deemed unusable and eventually destroyed. 

Plaintiff Mecca filed a claim with J.B. Hunt’s cargo claims office “for product integrity compromised” due to the broken seal on the shipment which had precipitated a complete loss of the Fibersol.  J.B. Hunt denied the claim. 

Mecca filed this lawsuit against J.B. Hunt, claiming breach of contract and negligence for the cargo loss and damage.  At the trial court level, J.B. Hunt filed for a summary judgment and the contract claim was dismissed but the negligence claim was not dismissed. 

The trial court found that the negligence claim was based upon J.B. Hunt’s failure to deliver the Fibersol with an intact seal.  Further, the trial court noted that the record contained evidence indicating that if the seal was broken upon delivery, that goes against the industry standard. 

To establish the industry standard, plaintiff Mecca presented the testimony of its employee Andre Zielinski with 40 years’ experience in the industry to establish the requisite standard of care.  He testified that the seal was a lock and you place a specific lock on a load from stopping an unauthorized personnel to enter into the load.  The seal is common in the industry and, if it is broken, that means the load was tampered with.  At that point, the receiver can choose to either accept the load or refuse the load because it is not intact.  His opinion was based upon his many years in the shipping industry in which he worked as a traffic manager or variations of that title.

On the eve of trial, the defendant made a motion in limine to bar Zielinski’s deposition testimony on the standard of care because he had not been named as an expert witness.  The court granted that motion, ruling that he could not provide an opinion on the standard of care because plaintiff had failed to name him as an expert.  However, the court ruled that Zielinski could testify as a fact witness based on his personal observations about the seal.

The matter proceeded to a bench trial and the court did find that the seal was intact when that Fibersol arrived in Landers.  It further found that, while the container was in the defendant’s yard for 4-5 days, the seal had been broken by a J.B. Hunt driver prior to the receipt of the delivery to the customer. 

However, the court found that the negligence claim was predicated on a standard of care owed by J.B. Hunt as a transport company, which standard was too complex to be determined without expert testimony.  The trial court judge found that plaintiff was required to establish the appropriate standard of care through an expert. Because the plaintiff had failed to establish the standard of care owed by J.B. Hunt, the Court dismissed the complaint.

This appeal ensued.  Plaintiff argued that the trial court made a mistake in prohibiting its longtime employee, with his many years of experience in the shipping industry, from opining on the standard of care.  Further, plaintiff argued that the trial court made a mistake by determining expert proof was required to establish damages.  The Appellate Division agreed with both of these arguments. 

Initially, the Court noted as follows: “A trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence generally is entitled to deference absent a showing that the court abused its discretion such that the decision was so wide off the mark as to constitute a manifest in justice.”

Further, the Appellate Division stated that the courts “have required expert testimony to establish the standard of care in negligence actions or the underlying facts concern scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge that will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.”  Under the lay opinion evidence rule, N.J.R.E. 701, “a party to an action with expertise gained through such personal experience may express an opinion of the sort ordinarily provided by an expert.”

The Appellate Division noted that Zielinski’s testimony was admitted by the court but that the trial court did not accept it to establish the appropriate standard of care.  The Court found that this decision was an error by the trial court.  Because Zielinski’s undisputed testimony that he had been in the shipping industry for about 40 years, had been an employee by a few companies, mostly major freight forwarding companies, where he worked as a traffic manager or the like, his testimony about the seal was based on facts known to him in his professional role as plaintiff’s employee.  Because of his extensive professional experience and personal knowledge about the facts of the case, the Appellate Division found that Zielinski was qualified to opine on the requisite standard of care on this negligence claim.  Further, the Court found that Zielinski was not required to be designated as an expert witness or to prepare a report to testify as to the standard of care.

Accordingly, the Appellate Division remanded the matter back to the trial court for reconsideration of the trial evidence consistent with its opinion.