Vicente Cardenas' Tragic Death: Res Ipsa Loquitor?

Though we talked about the tragic death of 4-year-old Vicente Cardenas earlier this week when discussing pool safety, at the time, there wasn’t enough information to even began to speculate on the legal implications of his accidental death. Now, after a few more days, a tragic tale has emerged of an unsupervised child who didn’t know how to swim and the series of safeguards that failed to protect him.

The family, desperate for answers, is planning to file a lawsuit in the coming days, reports ABC 7. There are lots of questions surrounding Vicente’s death. How does a 4-year-old get into a pool without a life jacket? How does that same child end up in the fetal position under five feet of water? And how do numerous lifeguards and chaperones all fail to notice and prevent the little boy’s death?

There’s a related legal concept. In cases where fault is difficult to prove, yet obvious, the Latin phrase, res ipsa loquitor applies. It roughly translates to “the thing speaks for itself”. In short, negligence is obvious from the circumstances and it is therefore not necessary to prove fault.

Such a concept would be dangerous if widely used. Someone breaks an ankle while jogging? It’s obvious that it was the city’s fault for not maintaining their sidewalks properly. Someone else gets rear-ended. It’s obvious that the brakes were faulty for not stopping quickly enough.

However, in the rarest of rare cases, it really is obvious. The lifeguards had one job: protect swimmers from drowning. The chaperones had one job: protect children from drowning. When a 4-year-old child who cannot swim ends up unconscious, in the fetal position, in the deep end of the pool, without a life jacket, two redundant safeguards have failed and both parties’ negligence speaks for itself.

At least, that’s an argument that could be made based on the reported facts.

Related Resources:


Contact a Chicago Personal Injury Attorney (FindLaw)
Family of drowned boy demands answers (Chicago Tribune)
Res Ipsa Loquitur (FindLaw’s Learn About the Law)
Arlington Heights Explosion Kills One, Injures Ten (FindLaw’s Chicago Personal Injury Law Blog)


The Chicago Personal Injury Law Blog

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