Res Ipsa Loquitur

In one line

Where an accident is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen if those in control take proper care, the accident itself is evidence of negligence.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: res ipsa loquitur means the thing speaks for itself; where the thing causing the damage was under the management or control of the defendant, and the accident is such as does not ordinarily happen if those who have such control use proper care, the accident itself affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by the defendant, that it arose from want of care; the maxim is a rule of evidence and not a rule of law, and it shifts the burden of explanation on to the defendant.

The three conditions

1. The thing causing the damage was under the defendant's control or management.

2. The accident is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen if proper care is used.

3. There is no explanation of how the accident happened, or the explanation offered is consistent with negligence.

Where the three are satisfied, the plaintiff may prove the accident and stop; it is then for the defendant to show that it happened without negligence on his part.

The Indian authority for what the maxim does

Facts. Pushpabai Purshottam Udeshi v. Ranjit Ginning and Pressing Co., AIR 1977 SC 1735, decided on 25 March 1977. A company's car, driven by its manager, left the road and struck a tree beyond the pavement so violently that the vehicle was badly damaged and its occupants killed. The dependants of a passenger claimed compensation. The company pleaded inevitable accident but led no evidence of how the accident happened.

Held. Where a car leaves the road and strikes a tree so violently, the maxim res ipsa loquitur applies. The general purport of the words is that the accident speaks for itself, or tells its own story: in such cases it is enough for the plaintiff to prove the accident and nothing more, and it is then for the defendant to establish that it happened from some cause other than his own negligence. Having pleaded inevitable accident and led no evidence, the company failed.

Why it matters here. It is the clearest Indian statement of what the maxim is for: it relieves the plaintiff of the hardship of proving how an accident happened when only the defendant can know.

The second Indian illustration

Facts. Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Subhagwanti, AIR 1966 SC 1750. The Clock Tower in Chandni Chowk, owned by the Corporation, collapsed and killed three people. It was eighty years old, the mortar of its top storey had a life of forty to forty-five years, and the Corporation had never examined it for latent defects.