Court Opinion

ID: 9539749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:09:32.519383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:18.013530
License: Public Domain

R.OSSMAN, J.,
specially concurring.
The defendant placed a pad under the end of the ramp that rested upon the recently painted floor of the porch. The ramp definitely sloped downward from the tail end of the truck to this pad. As the men stepped from the body of the truck onto the ramp and down the latter they inevitably gave the ramp an impulse or spur to skid upon the pad and away from the tailgate. The ramp was not fastened to the truck so as to prevent it from moving therefrom. The plaintiff’s son directed the attention of the defendant’s driver to this situation. The latter could readily warrant the jury in inferring that the *272defendant was negligent. The doctrine of res ipsa loqnitnr does nothing more than authorize an inference of negligence from circumstantial evidence in some cases. Dunning v. Northwestern Electric Company, 186 Or 379, 199 P2d 648. The doctrine could do nothing more than the reason of the jury apparently did from the facts just stated. It was unnecessary to employ that rule in this case, hut its employment can not he deemed prejudicial to the defendant.
I concur.
McAllister, C.J., joins in this opinion.