## Facts

- Jose Rosa, a Passaic police officer, responded on duty to a call for emergency medical assistance at a Dunkin’ Donuts regarding an unconscious employee.
- While helping move the unconscious employee on a stretcher through the kitchen toward a police ambulance, Rosa slipped on a powdery white substance on the kitchen floor and was injured.
- Rosa alleged the franchise and its owner negligently allowed the substance to remain on the floor, creating a slippery condition.
- Rosa pursued workers’ compensation and also filed a negligence action against the franchise and its owner.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to defendants based on the fireman’s rule as applied to police officers; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the fireman’s rule bars a police officer’s negligence claim against a property owner for an unsafe condition encountered while responding to an emergency, even when the owner’s negligence did not cause the emergency that brought the officer to the premises.
2. Whether a slippery-floor hazard in the course of an on-duty emergency response is an “ordinary negligence” risk inherent in police work covered by the fireman’s rule.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed summary judgment for defendants.
- The court held the fireman’s rule bars a police officer’s claim for ordinary negligence arising from risks that are inherent in, and reasonably expected during, performance of duty at the scene.
- The bar applies even if the defendant’s negligence did not create the event that prompted the officer’s presence.

## Legal Principles

- Under New Jersey’s fireman’s rule (as applied to police officers), a property owner is not liable in negligence to a paid public-safety officer for injuries caused by ordinary negligent conditions that are among the normal hazards of responding to emergencies.
- The rule is not limited to negligence that created the initial emergency; it also covers ordinary negligent conditions encountered during the response that officers should anticipate as part of their work.
- The rule reflects a policy allocation of loss for routine job-related risks to public compensation systems (including salary and workers’ compensation), rather than tort recovery from individual property owners.

## Conclusion

Because a slippery kitchen floor was a foreseeable, job-related hazard encountered while Rosa performed core emergency-response duties, the fireman’s rule barred his ordinary-negligence claim against the franchise and its owner, and dismissal on summary judgment was affirmed.


Rosa v. Dunkin' Donuts of Passaic, 122 N.J. 66, 583 A.2d 1129 (N.J. 1991)