## Facts

- Rockne Krebs, an artist, kept plexiglass sculptures in his studio.
- Dennis L. Bronson parked a station wagon inside Krebs’s studio, near a large sculpture, to work on dents in the car out of the morning cold.
- Krebs had not given permission for the car to be placed in the studio but did not immediately order its removal; he provided a dent-removing tool and asked Bronson to remove the car as soon as possible.
- While Krebs was answering a nearby telephone, he glanced back and saw Bronson “flying through the air” and landing in the middle of a plexiglass sculpture.
- Four sculptures were destroyed.
- Krebs did not know what caused Bronson to be propelled or to fall into the sculptures; the immediate cause was within Bronson’s superior knowledge.
- Krebs sued Bronson for negligent damage to personal property and sued Donald T. Corrigan on a respondeat superior theory.
- At the close of Krebs’s case, the trial court directed a verdict for defendants for failure to prove negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether res ipsa loquitur may support a prima facie negligence case where the accident-producing “instrumentality” is the defendant’s body and the plaintiff cannot identify the precise mechanism causing the body to strike the property.
2. Whether the trial court erred in granting a directed verdict on the ground that the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence of negligence to reach the jury.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the directed verdict and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that res ipsa loquitur could apply because the occurrence (a person propelled into and destroying sculptures) was the type of event that ordinarily does not happen absent negligence.
- The court treated Bronson’s body as the relevant instrumentality and found it was within Bronson’s exclusive control.
- The plaintiff’s inability to explain the precise mechanics did not bar reliance on res ipsa loquitur; the doctrine addresses situations where explanatory facts are more accessible to the defendant.
- Because the elements of res ipsa loquitur were supported by the evidence, the case should have been submitted to the jury.

## Legal Principles

- Res ipsa loquitur permits, but does not compel, an inference of negligence when the occurrence is of a kind that ordinarily does not occur without negligence.
- The “instrumentality” requirement may be satisfied by a defendant’s body when it is the cause-in-fact of the harm and is within the defendant’s exclusive control.
- A plaintiff need not prove the precise causal mechanism to reach the jury where the defendant has superior access to the explanation and the circumstances support the res ipsa inference.
- When res ipsa loquitur is supported by the evidence, directing a verdict for the defendant is improper; the jury must decide whether to draw the inference and whether any defendant explanation rebuts it.

## Conclusion

The court held that the destruction of the sculptures by Bronson’s airborne fall could support res ipsa loquitur, making a directed verdict improper and requiring a new trial so a jury could consider an inference of negligence.


Krebs v. Corrigan, 321 A.2d 558 (D.C. 1974)