22. If there is no other applicable statute, for which party should the court enter judgment?

The circumstantial evidence doctrine of res ipsa loquitur («the thing speaks for itself») deals with situations where the mere fact that an injury occurred can establish or tend to establish a breach of duty. Where the facts strongly indicate that the plaintiff's injuries resulted from the defendant's negligence, the trier of fact may be permitted to infer that the defendant was probably negligent. Res ipsa loquitur requires the plaintiff to show: (i) an inference of negligence (i.e., that the accident causing the injury is the type that would not normally occur unless someone in the defendant's position was negligent); (ii) negligence attributable to the defendant (i.e., evidence that this type of accident normally happens because of negligence, such as that the instrumentality that caused the injury was in the defendant's exclusive control); and (iii) that the plaintiff is free from negligence, meaning the injury was not attributable to him.

Res ipsa loquitur does not change the burden of proof or create a presumption of negligence. A successful res ipsa showing by the plaintiff amounts to a prima facie case, which will preclude the defendant from being awarded a directed verdict. However, if the defendant rebuts the res ipsa showing with evidence that he did exercise due care, it has the same effect as in all other cases. In that scenario, the jury may either find that the defendant's evidence overcomes the plaintiff's res ipsa showing and decline to infer liability, or it may reject the defendant's evidence and draw the permissible inference of negligence, finding for the plaintiff. Even if the defendant rests without offering evidence, the jury may still elect not to infer negligence.

A seminal opinion involving strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities was Rylands v. Fletcher, L.R. 3 H.L. 330 (1868), an English case that was effectively codified in the Second Restatement of Torts. The result was a six-factor test for determining whether an activity is considered «abnormally dangerous» such that strict liability should apply. The factors include, but are not limited to, a high degree of risk, risk of serious harm, inability to eliminate risk even with due care, and not a matter of common usage.

Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, with certain exceptions not relevant here, the federal government is liable only for negligence. A federally owned and operated nuclear reactor emitted substantial quantities of radioactive matter that settled on a nearby dairy farm, killing the dairy herd and contaminating the soil. At the trial of an action brought against the federal government by the farm's owner, the trier of fact found the following: (1) the nuclear plant had a sound design, but a valve made by an engineering company had malfunctioned and allowed the radioactive matter to escape; (2) the engineering company was universally regarded as a quality manufacturer of components for nuclear plants; and (3) there was no way the federal government could have anticipated or prevented the emission of the radioactive matter.

Exam Tip: This question explicitly states that under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the federal government may ONLY be liable for negligence, with no applicable exceptions or competing statutes. Your analysis should thus focus solely on whether the farm owner has offered sufficient evidence of negligence in order to prevail. Any facts that would normally implicate strict liability are a red herring because strict liability is not a possible outcome here.

C is correct. The government should prevail because the farm owner did not provide enough evidence to carry the burden of proving the federal government's negligence in its operation of the nuclear reactor. Negligence requires a showing of duty, breach, causation, and damages. The trier of fact found that the reason for the emission was a malfunctioning valve that a high-quality manufacturer had produced and that «there was no way the federal government could have anticipated or prevented the emission of the radioactive matter.» This evidence precludes a finding that the government breached its duty to act reasonably in operating the reactor, and as such, the court should enter judgment for the government because a case has not been proved under the FTCA.

A is incorrect. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur only applies to situations where a jury can choose to infer negligence based on the circumstantial evidence offered. A plaintiff invoking this doctrine must offer sufficient evidence to show that the injury would not have occurred in the absence of negligence. This requires proof that (i) the defendant was in exclusive control of the instrumentality that caused the injury; (ii) the plaintiff was not negligent, and (iii) that there is an inference of negligence (i.e., the accident that caused the injury would not normally occur unless someone had been negligent). This third element is not satisfied here, where the evidence actually proves the contrary — that negligence was not the cause of the injury.

B is incorrect. This answer choice is a distraction because it invokes strict liability based on the handling of toxic chemicals, which is an abnormally dangerous activity. This is the principle that originates in Rylands v. Fletcher, a case based on strict liability rather than on negligence. Here, however, strict liability cannot apply because the FTCA only permits actions based on negligence.

D is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. The federal government should prevail, but not because the chain of proximate cause was broken here. Generally, the actions of multiple defendants may collectively satisfy proximate cause for a plaintiff's negligence action. But this alone is insufficient to establish negligence. The plaintiff must also prove that the defendant breached a duty by acting unreasonably. As explained above, the trier of fact found that the federal government could not have possibly anticipated or prevented the accident, that it hired a competent manufacturer of the part that malfunctioned, and that the nuclear reactor otherwise had a sound design. These facts establish that the government did not breach its duty of care to act reasonably, and therefore, the government should prevail.