Res Ipsa Loquitur - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition res-ipsa-loquitur

Definition :

Res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself), a phrase used in actions for injury by negligence where no proof of negligence is required beyond the accident itself, which is such as necessarily to involve negligence, e.g., a collision between two trains upon a railway: see Carpue v. London, Brighton, and South Coast Ry. Co., (1844) 5 Ex. 787.

Res ipsa loquitur (thing speaks for itself) is a principle which, in reality, belongs to the law of torts, Syed Akbar v. State of Karnataka, AIR 1979 SC 1848 (1851).

The thing speaks for itself.

This maxim is applicable in actions for injury by negligence where no proof of negligence is required beyond the accident itself, which is such as necessarily to involve negligence-- e.g., where a ship in motion collides with a ship at anchor. It ought not to be applied unless the facts proved are more consistent with negligence in the defendant than with a mere accident; nor ought it to be applied to evidence of an unexplained accident, if the evidence is as consistent with the cause of the accident having been the victim's own negligence, as with its having been that of the defendant.

Res ipsa loquitur, means 'the thing speaks for itself'. A doctrine or rule of evidence in tort law that permits an inference or presumption that a defendant was negligent in an accident injuring the plaintiff on the basis of circumstantial evidence if the accident was of a kind that does not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence, Cox v. May Dept. Store Co., 903 P 2d 1119 (1995).