res ipsa loquitur
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˌrɛs ˈɪpsə ˈloʊkwɪtər/
- Formal
:
res ipsa loquitur
- He confidently argued that res ipsa loquitur justified the plaintiff's claim, as the circumstances indicated something went wrong.
Examples
-
Res ipsa loquitur.
Blog text (4) -
Although the appellant could not identify a particular negligent act, she relied on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to establish her claim.
Academic text (2018) -
By the way, the legal concept of "res ipsa loquitur" actually places the burden of proof on the people with the inside knowledge of the workings of a faulty mechanism and not on the people who are not privy to that knowledge.
Blog text (28) -
In her case, the court accepted the principle of res ipsa loquitur, which meant negligence was implied without requiring direct evidence.
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The lawyer explained that res ipsa loquitur applies in situations where the accident's occurrence suggests negligence.
Surface Forms
Morphology
res + ipsa + loquitur
This is a fixed Latin legal formula whose constituents are not English words a B1 learner would know, and even with a literal gloss ("the thing itself speaks") mapping that to the specialized legal meaning (inference of negligence) requires legal background. As a domain-specific idiom used in law and typically untranslated in everyday English, its meaning cannot be derived by typical learners from the parts alone.
Etymology
Res ipsa loquitur is an old legal saying whose literal parts are res meaning 'thing', ipsa meaning 'itself', and loquitur meaning 'speaks', so it means 'the thing speaks for itself'. That's why when an accident is so clear that the event itself shows someone was 'careless', a court can find fault without other proof.