McKinley Richardson: The Evidence Speaks For Itself

On the other hand, res ipsa loquitur is a common law legal theory invoked in tort cases where a plaintiff provides compelling circumstantial evidence allowing the court to infer the defendants negligence. The evidence is so obvious that it speaks for itself relieving the plaintiff from having to prove anything further. Speaks for itself does not fall into any of these categories. If counsel asks a witness to read a document out loud during a hearing, there is no objection in the federal rules of evidence called the document speaks for itself. A witness, with the courts permission, may always read from a document during an evidentiary hearing or.

Evidence rule 1002 does require that to prove the contents of a document the original is required, but that is not the same thing as saying that the. Res ipsa loquitur is a latin phrase that translates to the thing speaks for itself. this term is often used in personal injury cases to help prove that someone was negligent, even if there isn't direct evidence showing that they were at fault. Imagine youre at a restaurant, and suddenly a heavy object falls from the ceiling, injuring you. The defendant objected on the grounds that the document speaks for itself. The court held that the objection was improper: It is astonishing that the objection that a document speaks for itself, repeated every day in courtrooms across america, has no support whatsoever in the law of evidence. Res ipsa loquitur is a principle intortlaw that allowsplaintiffsto meet theirburden of proofwith what is, in effect,circumstantial evidence. the plaintiff can create arebuttable presumptionofnegligenceby proving that the harm would not ordinarily have occurred without the negligenceof the defendant, that the object that caused the harm w.