Res Ipsa Loquitur
Res ipsa loquitur is Latin for “the thing speaks for itself,” and it is a rescue doctrine for the plaintiff who knows she was hurt by negligence but cannot prove the specific
11. Res Ipsa Loquitur
Res Ipsa Loquitur.** A plaintiff can prove the duty, breach, and causation elements of negligence through the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, which applies if the incident was the type of incident that does not ordinarily occur without someone having been negligent and the harm was caused by an instrumentality under the exclusive control of the defendant at the time the negligence took place. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF TORTS: PHYS. & EMOT. HARM § 17 (2010); DAN B. DOBBS, ET AL., THE LAW OF TORTS §§ 169-76 (2d ed.) **
- Res ipsa loquitur allows a plaintiff to establish the prima facie case of negligence in the absence of evidence to establish exactly what happened.
- The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur can establish duty, breach, and causation for the plaintiff’s injury.
- Res ipsa loquitur applies only if the plaintiff can establish two conditions:
- The incident would not ordinarily occur without someone being negligent.
- The harm was caused by an instrument under the defendant’s exclusive control at the time the negligence took place.
- The Nevada FLE does not test the different procedural effects of res ipsa loquitur. Jurisdictions vary on those approaches.
Res ipsa loquitur lets a plaintiff establish duty, breach, and causation circumstantially, from the nature of the accident itself, without proving the specific careless act, when two conditions are met.
Res ipsa loquitur is Latin for "the thing speaks for itself," and it is a rescue doctrine for the plaintiff who knows she was hurt by negligence but cannot prove the specific careless act. Normally a negligence plaintiff has to identify what the defendant did wrong. Res ipsa is the exception: it lets the plaintiff establish a prima facie case of duty, breach, and causation circumstantially, from the nature of the accident itself, even with no evidence of exactly what happened.
- 1The accident must be the kind that does not ordinarily happen unless someone was negligent.
- 2The thing that caused the harm (the instrumentality) must have been under the defendant's exclusive control at the time the negligence occurred.
If both are present, the jury is permitted to find negligence from the circumstances alone.
Do not deny res ipsa because the plaintiff cannot prove exactly what happened. That gap is precisely what the doctrine excuses. And exclusive control attaches to the instrumentality that failed; shared or public handling breaks it.
The exam does not test the differing procedural effects of the doctrine, so never reach for whether it shifts a burden or merely permits an inference. Apply the two conditions and stop there.
The accident speaks for itself. Some things just do not happen unless someone was careless, and if the defendant was the only one in control, the injury alone points the finger.
It is the kind of accident that does not happen unless someone was negligent. If it is the sort of thing that can happen on its own, res ipsa fails.
Whatever caused the harm was in this defendant's exclusive control when the negligence happened. Shared access or open public access breaks exclusive control.
You need both, not one. Either one without the other does not get the plaintiff to a jury.
Does not normally happen without negligence, and only the defendant was in control. That is res ipsa.
Res ipsa fills in the missing 'how.' The whole point is that the plaintiff does not have to prove exactly what happened, so do not let a distractor punish her for that gap.
A hotel guest is asleep in her room on the fourth floor when a heavy ceiling light fixture tears loose and falls on her. She has no idea why it fell. The hotel installed and maintained the fixture, and no guest can reach the ceiling anchor.
Suppose the fixture is a floor lamp that dozens of guests handle every day, and it tipped and burned her.
Notice what we never did: we never asked whether res ipsa shifts a burden or merely permits an inference. That procedural question is outside the tested scope. Two boxes, then stop.
An option denies res ipsa 'because the plaintiff cannot prove exactly what happened' or 'cannot identify the specific defect/act.'
That inability is exactly what res ipsa excuses; the doctrine lets the plaintiff make a prima facie case in the absence of evidence of exactly what happened.An option grants res ipsa on the accident-type condition alone, or where suppliers, staff, and customers all handled the instrumentality, or pins exclusive control to ownership/premises rather than control of the thing that failed.
Both conditions are required, and exclusive control attaches to the instrumentality that caused the harm at the time the negligence took place; shared or public handling breaks it.An option uses an absolute, such as a plaintiff being 'required to' always identify the specific negligent act, or res ipsa applying 'only' to one category of case.
Res ipsa is defined by its two conditions, not by any fixed category, and it specifically relieves the plaintiff of identifying the precise act.An option decides the question on strict liability, abnormal danger, negligence per se, or the plaintiff's own carelessness instead of the two res ipsa conditions.
Res ipsa turns only on accident-type and exclusive control; a different doctrine or a comparative-fault point cannot be the operative basis.a stem where the plaintiff was clearly hurt by something but cannot say what the defendant did wrong, and the call asks whether the plaintiff can still make out a negligence case.
The tells: phrases like 'cannot show exactly how,' 'no evidence of what caused,' or a sudden, otherwise-unexplained failure of something the defendant ran.
The instant you see an unexplained injury plus a call about establishing negligence, run the two boxes from Layer 3: does this ordinarily happen without negligence, and did this defendant have exclusive control of the instrumentality.
If the facts hand you several parties who could have touched the instrumentality, the question is almost certainly testing the exclusive-control condition.
Resist any urge to ask what procedural effect res ipsa has; that is outside scope.
A shopper was riding a department store's escalator when the escalator suddenly reversed direction and threw her down the steps, injuring her. The store installed, owned, and maintained the escalator, and customers could only ride it, not service or adjust its mechanism. The shopper cannot show exactly what within the escalator malfunctioned, but escalators do not ordinarily reverse direction and throw riders without someone having been negligent in their maintenance.
May the shopper rely on res ipsa loquitur to establish a prima facie case of negligence against the store?
A diner was injured when a glass beverage dispenser exploded on a self-serve counter at a cafeteria. For the three days before the explosion, the dispenser had been delivered and filled by a beverage supplier, restocked by cafeteria staff, and handled by dozens of customers who served themselves. The diner cannot show what caused the dispenser to explode, and such dispensers do not ordinarily explode without someone having been negligent.
Can the diner establish a prima facie case against the cafeteria through res ipsa loquitur?
A customer slipped and fell on a small puddle of water near the entrance of a grocery store during a heavy rainstorm, when many shoppers were tracking rain inside on their shoes and umbrellas. The customer cannot show how long the water had been there or how it got there, and water tracked in by shoppers during a storm is a common occurrence that frequently appears without any negligence by the store.
May the customer use res ipsa loquitur to establish a prima facie case against the store?
A homeowner hired a roofing contractor to repair the roof of her house. The contractor was the only person on the roof and brought and controlled all of the tools and materials. While the contractor was working, a heavy bundle of shingles fell from the roof and struck a passerby on the public sidewalk below. The passerby cannot show exactly how the bundle came to fall, but bundles of shingles do not ordinarily fall from a roof without someone having been negligent.
Is the passerby likely able to establish a prima facie case against the contractor through res ipsa loquitur?
A patient went into a hospital for surgery on her right knee and woke up with a serious burn injury to her left arm, an area that was not involved in the operation. The arm had been uninjured and under the control of the surgical team the entire time she was unconscious. The patient has no way to identify which member of the team caused the burn or how it happened, and such a burn does not ordinarily occur during surgery without negligence. The hospital argues that, because she cannot prove which act caused her injury, she has failed to establish any element of negligence.
Is the hospital's argument correct?