Liability and Individualized Evidence

Abstract

Cases like Smith v. Rapid Transit, Inc.I present a problem to students of tort law.Here is a typical hypothetical case-I will call it Smith v. Red Cab-which presents the problem more cleanly than the actual case does.Mrs. Smith was driving home late one night.A taxi came towards her, weaving wildly from side to side across the road.She had to swerve to avoid it; her swerve took her into a parked car; in the crash, she suffered two broken legs.Mrs. Smith therefore sued Red Cab Company.Her evidence is as follows: she could see that it was a cab which caused her accident by weaving wildly across the road, and there are only two cab companies in town, Red Cab (all of whose cabs are red) and Green Cab (all of whose cabs are green), and of the cabs in town that night, six out of ten were operated by Red Cab.Why is that the only evidence she can produce against Red Cab?She says that although she could see that it was a cab which came at her, she could not see its color, and as it was late, there were no other witnesses to the accident-other than the driver himself, of course, but he has not come forward to confess.If we believe Mrs. Smith's story, and are aware of no further facts that bear on the case, then we shall think it .6probable that her accident was caused by a cab operated by Red Cab.I think it pays to spell this reasoning out; what follows is one way of doing so.If we believe Mrs. Smith's story, then we believe that a cab, indeed exactly one cab, caused the accident, so that there is such a thing as the cab which caused the accident; and we believe that it was a cab in town that night.Thus we believe:(1) The cab which caused the accident was a cab in town that night.If we believe Mrs. Smith's story, we also believe:(2) six out of ten of the cabs in town that night were operated by Red Cab.Relative to the facts reported by ( 1) and (2), it is true that:(3) The probability that the cab which caused the accident was operated by Red Cab is .6.

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