That’s a “legal Latin” term describing a common law doctrine taught to first-year law students in their torts class.
A “tort” is negligence or other wrongful behavior that results in harm, giving rise to liability for injury or damage. A car accident is a common example.
In tort law, application of the res ipsa loquitur doctrine results in a rebuttal inference of negligence. In the seminal 1863 English case, Byrne v. Roadle, a barrel of flour fell from a loft and struck the plaintiff. Although witnesses saw the barrel hit him, there was no witness as to how the barrel rolled out of the loft. The judge ruled the plaintiff didn’t have to prove that.
Instead, he wrote, “It is the duty of persons who keep barrels in a warehouse to take care that they do not roll out,” and the barrel couldn’t have rolled out of the warehouse “without some negligence.” This effectively shifted the burden to the defendant to prove he wasn’t negligent.
“The family of the 6-year-old boy who shot a first-grade teacher in her classroom said the gun was secured at their home when the student took it,” NBC News said here. That story, and others, have reported “the boy’s mother legally bought the gun, which the boy took from his home.”
Police are still investigating how the boy got the gun, and have yet to decide whether the mother will be criminally charged. Res ipsa loquitur is of no use to prosecutors, because it doesn’t apply in criminal law, but assuming the boy’s parents will be sued by the injured teacher — and why wouldn’t they be? — by definition the gun wasn’t secured because it had been the boy wouldn’t have had it.
A classic case of res ipsa loquitur. This is the flour barrel rolling out of the loft all over again. Six-year-olds don’t just find loaded guns lying around. Somebody had to be careless, and in figuring out who was, you start with the gun owner responsible for securing it. Now let’s add the fact that this child had a track record of behavior problems so severe that normally one of his parents was in the classroom with him, and his own family calls him “disabled,” and you’ve got a situation where it’s arguably negligent to have a gun in the house to begin with.
If I were on a jury, I’d expect that parent to take extraordinary precautions to make sure that gun was locked up. Firearms experts will tell you that guns and ammunition should be stored separately. There’s no way this disturbed child could’ve gotten a loaded gun unless one or more adults was careless.
It gets worse, much worse. According to Huffington Post, “school staff told administrators three separate times that the child had a gun” (read story here). First, the teacher who later was shot told administrators the boy had “threatened to beat up another student.” Then a different teacher told administrators that she searched his backpack, and believed he’d put the gun in his pocket. “Another teacher said a boy was crying after the 6-year-old showed the gun to him and said he would shoot him if he told anyone.”
The school administrators blew off all those warnings, and never checked the boy’s pockets. One even said, “he has little pockets.”
The assistant principal resigned last week, and the school board fired the superintendent today (Wednesday, January 25, 2023), after angry and worried parents confronted the board members and demanded they do something. There’s no question the school district is going to be sued; the wounded teacher has retained a lawyer. The boy’s mother better get a lawyer, if she doesn’t already have one.
Whether she’ll be criminally charged is, at this writing, up in the air. But as far as her liability for the shooting goes, the teacher doesn’t have to prove how her boy got her gun. Res ipsa loquitur.
Update (4/10/23): The boy’s mother will face a felony child neglect charge and a misdemeanor gun charge (read details here). If this can be framed as a child neglect case, then it seems to me the school officials are guilty of such neglect, too. In fact, the prosecutor said the investigation continues, which suggests other individuals may also face criminal charges.