concluding that there was nothing so unreasonable or abnormal in the plaintiff's use of a helm seat of a boat to support a claim of her negligence or prevent the inference of defendant's negligence arising in the first instance
How later courts described this case
- concluding that there was nothing so unreasonable or abnormal in the plaintiff's use of a helm seat of a boat to support a claim of her negligence or prevent the inference of defendant's negligence arising in the first instance
- “Having determined that res ipsa loquitur applies, there remains the question of its procedural effect.”
- plaintiff was injured when a sailboat’s helm seat on which she was sitting collapsed
- the absence of negligence element is satisfied when "`the general experience and observation of mankind teaches that the result would not be expected without negligence'"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Finley, J.
(concurring in the result) — I concur with the majority in remanding this case for a new trial because under the circumstances of this case, instructing the jury on contributory and comparative negligence was reversible error. I agree with the views of the majority, as I understand them, that the circumstances of negligence in this case were such as to merit an instruction to this effect, and to take the case past a nonsuit, to the jury. Such an instruction, and withholding instruction No. 3 on remand would, as stated by the majority, obviate any necessity for *605 giving an instruction on “res ipsa loquitur” labeled as such. I cannot agree with the majority that the res ipsa instruction, even labeled as such, should never be given in any case because it seems to me the propriety of such an instruction must, of necessity, be judicially determined on a case-by-case basis.