Tаken in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the evidence tends to show: On 21 September 1964, during “the first shift,” defendant completed the installation of a yam-processing machine for plaintiff’s employer, Burlington. Second-shift employees got “the heat leveled and creeled the yarn in.” On the third shift, which began at 11:00 p.m., Burlington’s fixer “checked out” the machine, and it was started. The machinе did not work properly; the yarn broke continuously, a condition ordinarily caused by excessive heat. About an hour later, as plaintiff went about teaching another employeе to operate the machine, she received an electric shock, which injured her arm.
Ordinarily, a defendant’s negligence may not be inferred from the mere fact of an occurrence which injures a plaintiff. On the contrary, in the absence of evidence on the subject, freedom from negligence will be- presumed.
Etheridge v. Etheridge,
The principle of
res ipsa Loquitur,
as generally stated in our decisions, is this: When an instrumentality which сaused an injury to plaintiff is shown to be under the control and operation of the defendant, and the accident is one which, in the ordinary course of events, does not happen if those who have the management of it use the proper care, the occurrence itself is some evidence that it arose from want of care.
Young v. Anchor Co.,
Negligence and causation, like other facts, may, of cоurse, be proved by circumstantial evidence.
Drum v. Bisaner,
Res ipsa loquitur
(the thing speaks for itself) simply means that the facts of the occurrence itself
warrant an inference of defendant’s negligence, i.e.,
that they furnish circumstantial evidence of negligence where direct evidence of it may be lacking.
Ridge v. R. R.,
In
Harris v. Mangum,
“Res ipsa loquitur, in its distinctive sense, permits negligence to be inferred from the physical cause of an accident, without the aid of circumstances pointing to the responsible human cause. Where *444 this rule applies, evidence of the physical cause or causes of the accident is sufficient to carry the case to the jury on the bare question of negligence. But where the rule does not apply, the plaintiff must prove circumstances tending to show some fault of omission or commission on the part of the defendant in addition to those which indicate thе physical cause of the accident.” (Emphasis added.)
The rule of res ipsa loquitur never applies when the facts of the occurrence, although indicating negligence on the part of some person, do not point to the defendant as the only probable tortfeasor. In such a case, unless additional evidence, which eliminates negligence, on the part of all others who have had control of the instrument causing the plaintiff’s injury, is introduced, the court must nonsuit the case. When such evidence is introduced and the only inference-remaining is that the fault was the defendant’s, the plaintiff has produced sufficient circumstantial evidence to take his case to the jury.
The foregoing rule was applied in
Plunkett v. United Electric Service,
Although in Plunkett v. United Electric Service, supra, the Louisiana court did not ipsissimis verbis make the distinction between circumstantial evidence in general and the technical rule of res ipsa loquitur, it did so in effect. The decision was that the plaintiff, by negating the responsibility of all others, had established by circumstantial evidence, in addition to the physical cause of the fire, that *445 the negligence of the defendant alone was rеsponsible for it. The court said:
“It must be remembered that, in cases like this, (unlike most instances where
res ipsa loquitur
is invoked) the plaintiff does not obtain the benefit of the doctrine by merely showing the unusual accident and the resulting injury. On the contrary, plaintiff is required to establish with certainty that the instrumentality installed by defendant is the source of the damage; that he was without fault and that the time elapsing between the installation and the damage was such as to make it reasonably evident that the damage would not have been caused if the device had been free from defeсt and had been properly installed.”
Id.
at 167,
In
Peterson v. Power Co.,
In automobile accident cases, we hold that “[t]he mere fact that an automobile veers off the highwаy is not enough to give rise to an inference of negligence.”
Yates v. Chappell,
In the instant case, the machine from which plaintiff received an electric shock was not under the control of defendant at the time plaintiff was injured. Sometime during the first shift, defendant had turned it over to Burlington, which had had its fixer to “check out” the machine, and its second-shift employees to get the “heat leveled” and the yarn “creeled in.” The fact that plaintiff received a shock from the machine undoubtedly allows an inference of negligence on the part of some person, but hеr evidence leaves unanswered the question, whose was the fault. It is a fair inference from plaintiff’s testimony that she, an instructor in the use of the machine, was operating it in a proper and customary manner. She did not, however, *446 offer any evidence tending to negate negligence on the part of those who manipulated or worked with the machine during the few hours which elapsed between the time defendant turned the machine over to Burlington and the time plaintiff was injured. Neither the “fixer” who checked out the machine and started it nor the employees who “got the heat leveled and creeled the yarn in” testified. Plaintiff’s evidence does not disclose what these operations entailed or how they were perfоrmed.
Since defendant had delivered the machine which caused plaintiff’s injury into the hands of Burlington’s employees who had thereafter exercised control over it — even though for a relatively short period — , plaintiff could not rely upon res ipsa loquitur. Having failed to produce evidence that those employees were free from fault, she was not entitled to go to the jury.
The judgment of nonsuit is
Affirmed.