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Szalontai v. Yazbo's Sports Cafe5/26/2005
psa loquitur doctrine:
In any case founded upon negligence, the proofs ultimately must establish that defendant breached a duty of reasonable care, which constituted a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. Res ipsa loquitur, a Latin phrase meaning "the thing speaks for itself," is a rule that governs the availability and adequacy of evidence of negligence in special circumstances. The rule creates an allowable inference of the defendant's want of due care when the following conditions have been shown: (a) the occurrence itself ordinarily bespeaks negligence; (b) the instrumentality [causing the injury] was within the defendant's exclusive control; and (c) there is no indication in the circumstances that the injury was the result of the plaintiff's own voluntary act or neglect.
The rule in effect creates a permissive presumption that a set of facts furnish reasonable grounds for the inference that if due care had been exercised by the person having control of the instrumentality causing the injury, the mishap would not have occurred. While the doctrine allows only an inference of negligence, it can create a powerful influence in the minds of the jury, and, as a practical matter, may very well shift the burden of persuasion. Once res ipsa loquitur is established, the case should go to the jury unless defendant's countervailing proof is so strong as to admit of no reasonable doubt as to the absence of negligence. In a case in which res ipsa loquitur applies, a directed verdict against the plaintiff can occur only if the defendant produces evidence which will destroy any reasonable inference of negligence, or so completely contradict it that reasonable men could no longer accept it. [(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).]
The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is subject, however, to limitation:
It is well settled that the existence of a possibility of a defendant's responsibility for a plaintiff's injuries is insufficient to impose liability. In the absence of direct evidence, it is incumbent upon the plaintiff to prove not only the existence of such possible responsibility, but the existence of such circumstances as would justify the inference that the injury was caused by the wrongful act of the defendant and would exclude the idea that it was due to a cause with which the defendant was unconnected.
While proof of certainty is not required, the evidence must be such as to justify an inference probability as distinguished from the mere possibility of negligence on the part of the defendant. [Hansen v. Eagle-Pitcher Lead Co., 8 N.J. 133, 141 (1951) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).]
Early on, we debunked the notion that res ipsa loquitur carried some mystical meaning in the law, explaining:
Res ipsa loquitur . . . is simply an emanation of the basic legal doctrine that a verdict in a negligence case may rest on circumstantial evidence. If the phrase itself had never been coined, undoubtedly the procedural result it has produced over the years in the cases to which it has been applied, i.e., submission to the jury of the question of the defendant's liability, would have been the same. The issue for determination would simply have been presented in terms of permissible inferences of negligence from the facts proved.
In its origin and early use the phrase did take on some rather clearly defined contours. It was said to be applicable when (1) the accident which produced a person's injury was one which ordinarily does not happen unless someone was negligent, (2) the instrumentality or agency which caused the accident was under the exclusive control of the defendant, and (3) the circumstances
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