delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a judgment for defendant after a demurrer to the declaration, as limited by bill of particulars, had been sustained.
Defendant conducts a department store in Baltimore, where the public, including plaintiff, is invited to enter as a customer to inspect or purchase its goods and merchandise; on December 20, 1948 plaintiff, in response to defendant's implied invitation, entered the store for such purposes; while she was looking at various toys in the store, she was violently struck by a “two-wheel bicycle”, the bicycle falling on plaintiff and pinning her leg against a show case or fixture in the store; thе bicycle struck and fell upon plaintiff directly and solely as the result of the negligence, carelessness and recklessness on the part of defendant’s agents who were in charge of the toy department, plaintiff’s leg was most seriously injured and she suffered other injury; the accident and resultant injuries were caused solely through and by the carelessness, recklessness and negligence of the agents of defendant and through no fault on the part of plaintiff thereunto contributing. So the declaration alleges.
In answer to demand for particulars and to exception to plaintiff’s original answer thereto, plaintiff says that the facts constituting recklessness, carelessness and negligence on the part of the agent, servant and employees of defendant are peculiarly within the knowledge of defendant, inasmuch as the instrumentality causing the injury complained of was within the control of and under the management and supervision of defendant, its agents, servants and employees.
In Maryland, by a long series of statutes dating back earlier than the Constitution of the United States and by rules of court in recent years, common law pleading and practice has been so simplified as to be rid of most of the cumbеrsome technical requirements at common law and to remain free from the brood of new niceties of code pleading. “Whatever facts are necessary to con
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stitute the ground of аction * * * shall be stated in the pleading and nothing more; and facts only shall be stated and not arguments, or inferences, or matter of law or of evidence, or of which the court takes notice
ex officio.”
Codе, Art. 75, sec. 2; Act of 1856, ch. 112, sec. 52. The requirement of “facts” and not “inferences” or “evidence” must include facts,
e.g.,
negligent conduct, and not merely circumstantial evidence from which the facts may be inferred. Even at common law, and especially in Maryland, no great particularization of facts and circumstances is necessary in stating a cause of action for negligence. Art. 75, sec. 28, sub-secs. (36, 37, 38);
Hearn v. Quillen,
Manifestly the declaration in the instant case is not sufficient on demurrer. It contains only the argumentative conclusion that plaintiff’s injuries were caused by defendant’s negligence, but states no acts done or left undone by defendant which constitute negligence or a negligent manner of doing anything. It falls short of the statutory forms of declarations
(supra)
and the decisions of this Court.
Jeter v. Schwind Quarry Co.,
After a declaration has been amplified by a bill of particulars, a demurrer to the declaration raises the
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question of sufficiency of the declaration as particularized. The' bill of particulars thus does not expand but limits the scope and generality of the declaration.
Cleaves v. Sharp & Dohme, Inc.,
By her declaration and bill of particulars, and in argument, plaintiff seeks to excuse the insufficiency of the declaration by invoking the doctrine or expression
res ipsa loquitur.
In the earliest reported negligence case in which that expression was used mention was made оf the circumstance that the defendant presumably was in a better position than the plaintiff to know or learn the facts of the accident.
Byrne v. Boadle
(1863), 2 H. & C. 722, 725. Just what bearing this circumstance has upon the application of the doctrine
res ipsa loquitur
is one of many still mooted questions surrounding that doctrine. Without pursuing the ramifications of the question, it may at least be said that never in Maryland —and seldom, if ever, elsewhere — has it beеn held that, if the facts do not give rise to a reasonable inference of the defendant’s negligence, the plaintiff, who has the burden of proof, can make out a case by proving that he is ignorаnt of other facts or knows less about them than the defendant.
Cf. Prosser, Res Ipsa Loquitur in California,
(1949), 37 Cal. Law Review 183, 202-204. If the “presumption” of negligence in
res ipsa loquitur
cases is ever more than an inference from circumstantial evidence (which Mr. Roszеl C. Thomsen says is not a true presumption,
Presumptions and Burden of Proof in Res Ipsa Lopuitur Cases in Maryland,
3 Maryland Law Review 285, 288), the usual operation of the doctrine is to support an inference from circumstantial evidence, based on probability. “The law requires proof of probable, not merely possible, facts, including causal relations. Reasoning
post hoc, propter hoc
is a recognized logical fallacy, a
non sequitur.
But sequence of events, plus
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proof of
possible
causal relation, may amount to proof of
probable
causal relation, in the absence of evidence of any other equally probable cause.
Baltimore City Passenger Railway Co., v. Kemp,
In
Bohlen v. Glenn L. Martin Co.,
At the argument and in the briefs counsel for both parties cited, pro and con, an interesting collection of casеs as to the application (if any) of the doctrine res *163 ipsa loquitur to injuries caused by various falling objects. If we were disposed (which we are not) to anticipate questions that might arise at the trial of a cаse such as the instant case, it would be futile to attempt to do so on the basis of this declaration. The res which does or does not speak for itself is the sum of all the circumstances shown in evidence. It is nоt conceivable that a case could be tried without evidence showing more circumstances than those alleged in this declaration. To generalize about the application of the doctrine res ipsa loquitur to accidents caused by falling objects would be as fruitless as to do so about the relation of the doctrine to the law of gravitation.
As our decision on the question of pleading now рresented does not go to the merits of the controversy between plaintiff and defendant, it will be without prejudice to a new suit based on a materially different declaration.
Cf. Blankman v. Hospelhorn,
Judgment affirmed, with costs.