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Dover Elevator Co. v. Swann3/25/1994
to adequately protect the ulnar nerve during the procedure." Id.
In reaching the decision that res ipsa loquitur was inapplicable in Meda, this Court acknowledged that each doctor relied at least in part on circumstantial evidence to reach his conclusion that the defendant negligently positioned the plaintiff's arm. The Court then concluded the following:
"The closest that this case comes to reliance upon res ipsa loquitur is in the inferential reasoning process used by the plaintiff's experts in arriving at their conclusions that Dr. Meda was negligent. As we shall see, neither Dr. Belaga nor Dr. Rybock could testify as to the precise act of negligence that caused injury to Mrs. Brown's ulnar nerve. Each doctor, based upon his knowledge of the facts and upon his expertise, concluded that Mrs. Brown's injury was one that ordinarily would not have occurred in the absence of negligence on the part of the anesthesiologist. This inferential reasoning has a familiar ring to it. It is a major part of the concept of res ipsa loquitur. It is not, however, res ipsa loquitur. Res ipsa loquitur, as we now utilize that concept in the law of negligence, means that in an appropriate case the jury will be permitted to infer negligence on the part of a defendant from a showing of facts surrounding the happening of the injury, unaided by expert testimony, even though those facts do not show the mechanism of the injury or the precise manner in which the defendant was negligent. " (Emphasis added).
Meda, 318 Md. at 424-25, 569 A.2d at 205. Thus, Meda clarifies the difference between offering direct evidence of negligence, or at least circumstantial evidence of the specific cause of an injury , and reliance upon res ipsa loquitur.
In the instant case, even if we were to accept the premise that the plaintiff's expert witness did not seek to furnish a complete explanation of this elevator's misleveling, he drew his own inferences of negligence. Moynihan derived the inferences regarding the causes of elevator number two's misleveling problems from his on-site inspection and his examination of the records presented to Swann during discovery. He then presented to the jury his expert opinion that the misleveling would not have occurred if Dover had exercised due care.
The closest this case comes to res ipsa loquitur is in "the inferential reasoning process used by the plaintiff's expert ," Donald Moynihan. Meda, 318 Md. at 424, 569 A.2d at 205. It therefore only resembles a res ipsa loquitur case, due to the inferences drawn by the expert witness and then presented to the jury. Consequently, "it might be said that 'the thing speaks for itself,' at least in terms of what the facts say to the expert. But that may be said of inferences in general, and yet it is not res ipsa loquitur as we know that concept in the law of negligence." Orkin, 318 Md. at 431, 569 A.2d at 208. See also Wrenn v. Vincent et Vincent, 235 Md. 466, 471, 201 A.2d 768, 771 (1964)(noting "'the close resemblance or relationship which may exist between what may be classified as res ipsa loquitur cases and cases in which a direct inference of the defendant's negligence may be drawn from particular facts'" (quoting Nalee, 228 Md. at 531, 180 A.2d at 680), and holding res ipsa loquitur inapplicable because this case was of the "latter type").
Thus Swann ventured beyond the mere offering of some evidence of negligence as asserted by the Court of Special Appeals. See Swann, 95 Md. App. at 39
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