Great interview

Loquor is a deponent verb. Although "loquitur" is passive in form, it doesn't mean "is spoken". Rather, it means "speaks". Most medical students wouldn't know this, but law students would be familiar with the phrase "res ipsa loquitur", thanks to Cicero. Lawyers have to know the correct mispronunciations of many Latin phrases. Woe to any law student who pronounces Latin the way Cicero did.

Latin was once a requirement--or at least a recommendation--for pre-med, pre-vet, pre-dentistry students. I know it was for me and I never regretted it Now, many schools don't even require kids to learn to read/write in cursive, so that they will no longer be able to even read their ancestors' papers. Sigh.... But, I digress....

all students were expected to know Latin before they went to college.

Medical students were even expected to know some Greek. Knowledge of the ancient languages made doctors seem omniscient, so their patients would comply with instructions and not ask too many questions. Toward that end, when the public became familiar with "adrenaline", the name was changed to "epinephrine".

I know someone who clerked for California Supreme Court justice Matthew Tobriner, one of the best writers in jurisprudence history. My friend turned in one of his first draft opinions in which he included Res Ipsa Loquitor. Tobriner drew a one through it with the comment : if the damned thing speaks for itself why can’t it speak English?

well, there's always one..

Tapper summarizes the statements of women who had direct personal knowledge of the facts they recounted. As lawyers use the phrase "res ipsa loquitur", it applies when that first-hand evidence is lacking. It means that the jury is entitled (though not required) to draw an inference from the circumstances.

The classic case involves a man who was walking along past a tavern. An empty beer barrel comes flying out of an open second-story window and strikes and injures the pedestrian. The employees of the tavern who were working in that area at the time all testify that they have absolutely no idea how that happened, and in particular they were most definitely not engaged in any kind of horseplay that involved tossing empty barrels around until one toss went astray and sent the barrel out the window.

The plaintiff can't present any direct evidence like that provided by Trump's accusers. But, come on, beer barrels, even empty ones, don't go flying through the air of their own volition. This accident is the kind of event that doesn't happen unless someone is negligent; the tavern (through its employees) had exclusive control of the instrumentality that caused the accident; and the plaintiff did nothing to cause his own injury. The jury can (and probably would) draw the inference that the tavern was at fault (being vicariously liable for the actions of its employees) even though no witness testifies about what happened in that second-story room. That's a res ipsa case.

The thing speaks for itself.