Opinion ID: 2604281
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Application of the Res Ipsa Loquitur Doctrine.

Text: (1a) The first question before us is whether the Court of Appeal correctly applied the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to the undisputed evidence. The question has this significance: Brown, in order to recover damages from the District, must prove that [a] negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment created the dangerous condition. (§ 835, subd. (a).) Because there is no evidence that the lunch meat came to be on the floor through an employee's negligence, the District is entitled to summary judgment unless the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur would permit a jury to infer that fact. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is too familiar to warrant a lengthy explanation. In brief, certain kinds of accidents are so likely to have been caused by the defendant's negligence that one may fairly say the thing speaks for itself. The Latin equivalent of this phrase, res ipsa loquitur, was first applied to a barrel of flour that rolled out of the window of the defendant's warehouse onto the plaintiff. ( Byrne v. Boadle (1863) 159 Eng.Rep. 299, 300.) As later courts repeated the phrase, it evolved into the name of a rule for determining whether circumstantial evidence of negligence is sufficient. The procedural and evidentiary consequences that follow from the conclusion that an accident speaks for itself vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. (2) In California, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is defined by statute as a presumption affecting the burden of producing evidence. (Evid. Code, § 646, subd. (b).) The presumption arises when the evidence satisfies three conditions: `(1) the accident must be of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone's negligence; (2) it must be caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant; (3) it must not have been due to any voluntary action or contribution on the part of the plaintiff.' ( Ybarra v. Spangard (1944) 25 Cal.2d 486, 489 [154 P.2d 687, 162 A.L.R. 1258], quoting Prosser, Torts, p. 295.) A presumption affecting the burden of producing evidence require[s] the trier of fact to assume the existence of the presumed fact unless the defendant introduces evidence to the contrary. (Evid. Code, § 604; see also id., § 646, subd. (c).) The presumed fact, in this context, is that a proximate cause of the occurrence was some negligent conduct on the part of the defendant.... ( Id., § 646, subd. (c)(1).) If the defendant introduces evidence which would support a finding that he was not negligent or that any negligence on his part was not a proximate cause of the occurrence, the trier of fact determines whether defendant was negligent without regard to the presumption, simply by weighing the evidence. ( Id., § 646, subd. (c); see also id., § 604.) Experience teaches that slips and falls are not so likely to be the result of negligence as to justify a presumption to that effect. As Prosser and Keeton explain, there are many accidents which, as a matter of common knowledge, occur frequently enough without anyone's fault.... [A]n ordinary slip and fall ... will not in [itself] justify the conclusion that negligence is the most likely explanation; and to such events res ipsa loquitur does not apply. (Prosser & Keeton, Torts (5th ed. 1984) § 39, p. 246.) This is true even when the fall is associated with a slippery object, because objects all too often appear on floors without sufficient explanation. For this reason, something slippery on the floor affords no res ipsa case against the owner of the premises, unless it is shown to have been there long enough so that he should have discovered and removed it. ( Id., at pp. 255-256.) (1b) This common wisdom is reflected in a legion of cases from many jurisdictions declaring as a general rule that res ipsa loquitur does not apply to slip and fall cases. [2] The analysis in Oldenburg v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., supra, 152 Cal. App.2d 733, in which the plaintiff slipped on a piece of chalk, is typical: The burden is on the plaintiff to prove every essential fact on which she relies [citation]. This burden is not met merely by proof that plaintiff invitee stepped on something while on invitor's premises and thereby was caused to fall and receive injuries, for `[n]o inference of negligence arises based simply upon proof of a fall upon the owner's floor. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is not applicable to such cases.' [Citations] ( Id., at p. 741.) While we need not go so far as to say that res ipsa loquitur can never apply to a slip and fall, the evidence in this case fittingly illustrates why such an occurrence ordinarily does not speak for itself. The lunch meat that apparently caused the accident went undetected until Brown fell; afterward, it was found stuck to the sole of his shoe. To be sure, the lunch meat might have been dropped by an employee, but it might also have been dropped by a visitor, tracked in from the outside or from Brown's own van, transported by an animal, or fallen from an object carried down the hall, even from one of the computers that Brown was delivering. Some of these explanations do not presuppose negligence, and none is inherently more probable than the others. In short, there is no basis whatever for a finding that either of the doctrine's first two conditions existed, i.e., (1) that the accident was of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone's negligence, or (2) that it was caused by an agency or instrumentality within the defendant's exclusive control. From this perspective, the case is practically identical with Gold v. Arizona Realty etc. Co., supra, 12 Cal. App.2d 676, in which the plaintiff slipped on a foreign substance in the defendant's apartment building. The court held that res ipsa loquitur did not apply because [t]he mere fact that plaintiff tripped and fell downstairs does not of itself create a situation in which the doctrine can be invoked. [Citation.] It was not shown that the `substance' which caused plaintiff's fall had been on the stairway any length of time or that it had been left there by an agent of defendant. [Citation.] To determine how the `substance' became attached to plaintiff's shoe one must enter the field of conjecture. It may have been picked up from the street as she entered the apartment house or it may have dropped on the stairway by someone not in defendant's employ. ( Id., at p. 677.) In the case before us, one would also have to enter the field of conjecture to determine how lunch meat came to be underneath Brown's foot. That is what the Court of Appeal appears to have done. To support its conclusion that Brown's accident was of a type that would not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence, the court reasoned that [s]omeone must have dropped the lunch meat on the hallway floor. Perhaps so, perhaps not. The evidence is silent. But even if one conjectures that it was dropped, one must pile conjecture upon conjecture to decide that an employee was responsible. The Court of Appeal also asserted that [c]ommon experience indicates Brown probably would not have slipped on lunch meat in the hallway in the absence of someone's negligence. However, this assertion both contradicts the nearly universal experience reflected in judicial opinions (see the cases cited in fn. 2, ante ) and overlooks equally probable explanations of the accident. Conjecture also appears to underlie the Court of Appeal's conclusion that the lunch meat was under the District's exclusive control. Even granting the premise that the concept of exclusive control is somewhat flexible, and that the plaintiff need not exclude all other persons who might possibly have been responsible ( Zentz v. Coca Cola Bottling Co. (1952) 39 Cal.2d 436, 443-444 [247 P.2d 344]), the evidence in this case still does not support the necessary conclusion that it is more probable than not that the injury was the result of the defendant's negligence. ( Id., at p. 443, first italics added.) Accordingly, the Court of Appeal erred in holding that the evidence was sufficient to raise a presumption of negligence under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. Because there is no evidence to show that an employee of the District created the allegedly dangerous condition (§ 835, subd. (a)), the superior court's order granting the District's motion for summary judgment was correct. [3]