This аction was commenced by plaintiff-appellant Joe Blackburn, as guardian ad litem, to recover for personal injuries sustained by Ramona Blackburn while she was riding in a Boise school bus. At the time of the accident, Ramona was seated on the rear seat of the bus. The rear wheels of the bus encountered a “severe bump” (so termed by the driver), and Ramona and at least two other children were thrown up to the ceiling of the bus. Ramona came down, hit her mouth on the metal railing of the seat in front of her, and sustained severe injury to her teeth.
The accident resulting in Ramona’s injury occurred at the site of a newly completed bridge, which had been under construe *324 tion for a week or a week and a half. At the jury trial conducted below, the bus driver testified that he had driven by the bridge every day while it was under construction and, therefore, on the day of the accident he was aware that construction work had been going on in this arеa. On the last school day (a Friday) prior to the accident, it was still necessary to detour around the new bridge, since construction had not yet been completed. On the day of the accident (a Monday), the bus driver, when the bus was about two hundred feet away from the bridge, observed that it was no longer under construction. The previously posted warning signs had been removed, and workmen .were no longer present. The bus driver estimated that the bus was traveling at about twenty miles per hour when it reached the bridge. According to the driver’s recollection, the only time he checked the bridge’s condition was when he was about two hundred feet away. It was not until the accident happened that the driver realized that some defect in the roadway existed in the area of the bridge. The bus’s front wheels did not give the driver any indication of the presence, of a severe bump; nevertheless, the bus’s rear wheels did hit such a bump, and Ramona’s injury occurred as a result.
An inspector for the Ada County Road Department testified that he inspected the bridge in question within one or two working days after its completion. He could not say whether cоnstruction was completed on the Friday before the accident or on the Monday of the accident. If the bridge were completed on Friday, he would not have inspected it until Mоnday or Tuesday; if it were completed on Monday, he might not have inspected it .until Wednesday. In any event, upon examining the bridge for proper completion, the inspector ordered the repair of an irregularity in the roadbed. The passing of traffic had caused a depression to form in the excavated area between the bridge surface and the pаved highway; in addition, the gravel from the depression had formed a “lump” on the paved surface. The result was a “drop” of four or five inches (measured from the top of the “lump” to the bоttom of the depression). The inspector was unable to say whether this defect would have been visible to the bus driver as he approached the bridge on the day of the accidеnt; the inspector had no knowledge of the condition of the roadbed at the time Ramona was injured.
After the plaintiff had completed presentation of his case to the jury, the defendants made a “motion for involuntary dismissal.” Concluding that there was insufficient evidence for reasonable minds to differ on the question of negligence, the district court granted the defendants’ motion. In a jury case, a motion for involuntary dismissal made at the close of the plaintiff’s case is indistinguishable in operation and effect from a motion for a directed verdict. Van Vrankеn v. Fence-Craft,
The appellant’s sole contention is that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is applicable in this case and that, therefore, with the aid of that doctrine the aрpellant has established a prima facie case of negligence against che respondents.
Both sides to this appeal agree that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur shоuld be applied only when two elements coexist: (1) the agency or instrumentality causing the injury was under the control and management of the defendant; and (2) the circumstances were such thаt common knowledge and experience would justify the inference that the accident would not have happened in the absence of negligence.
E. g.,
Whitt v. Jarnagin, 91 Idaho
*325
181,
When the district court rendеred its decision in this case, it did not, unfortunately, have the benefit of our recently released decision in Straley v. Idaho Nuclear Corp.,
“In determining whether any issue of material fact is in dispute, it is well settled that the facts should be liberally construed in favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought. * * * On appeal from an order granting summary judgment, this court must construe the evidence presented to the district court liberally in favor of the party opposing the order and accord him 'the benefit of all inferences which might be reasonably drawn.’ ”94 Idaho at 918-919 ,500 P.2d at 219 .
Although the case at bar is here upon an appeal from an order granting dismissal (directed verdict), the governing standards are analogous. For the purpose of deciding whether the trial court errеd in granting the defendants’ motion, we must view the evidence introduced up to that point in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs are entitled to all reasonable inferences which can be drawn from facts established by their case in chief. Highbarger v. Thornock,
Despite the apparent similarity between
Straley
and the case at bar, the respondents nevertheless contend that neither of the elements requirеd for applying res ipsa is present in this case. The respondents first argue that they did not have control over the instrumentality which caused the injury. This argument is premised upon the assumption that the bumpy
road,
and not the bus, was the instrumentality which caused the injury. This assumption is, in our opinion, erroneous. Whether or not.the defective roadbed was in fact the product of the highway department’s nеgligent construction, as suggested by the respondents, it was the respondents who “had exclusive control of
the instrumentality
— i.
e., the bus
— which
caused [the] injury.”
Straley v. Idaho Nuclear Corp.,
supra,
In addition to contending that the injurious instrumentality was not under their control, the respondents argue that in this case common knowledge and experience do not justify the inference that the accident would not have occurred in the absence of negligence. Thus, in their brief they say: “Children bounce or fall from bus seats and аutomobile seats with both frequency and abandon. * * * [The evidence establishes] a quite ordinary bump having been taken without negligence leading to an unfortunate result * * * not something occurring whiсh only negligence could explain.” In
Straley,
we stated that “when it appears that the injury was resultant from a severe jerk not incident to the normal operation of the conveyance, the application of res ipsa loquitur is proper.”
Because the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is applicable, the plaintiff-appellant was entitled to have the case submitted to the jury. Hagan & Cushing Co. v. Washington Water Power Co.,
Judgment reversed and cause remanded for a new trial. Costs to appellant.