the doctrine of prima facie is to prevent litigants from bringing spurious charges which simply waste all other parties' time. Res ipsa loquitur Prima facie is often confused with res ipsa loquitur ('the thing speaks for itself', or literally 'the thing itself speaks'), the common law doctrine that when the facts make it self-evident that negligence or other responsibility lies with a party, it is not necessary to provide extraneous details, since any reasonable person would immediately find the facts of the case. The difference between the two is that prima facie is a term meaning there is enough evidence for there to be a case to answer, while Res ipsa loquitur means that the facts are so obvious a party does not need to explain any more. For example: "There is a prima facie case that the defendant is liable. They controlled the pump. The pump was left on and flooded the plaintiff's house. The plaintiff was away and had left the house in the control of the defendant. Res ipsa loquitur." In Canadian tort law, this doctrine has been subsumed by general negligence law. Use in academic philosophy The phrase is also used in academic philosophy. Among its most notable uses is in the theory of ethics first proposed by W. D. Ross in his book The Right and the Good, often called the Ethic of Prima Facie Duties, as well as in epistemology, as used, for example, by Robert Audi. It is generally used in reference to an obligation. "I have a prima facie obligation to keep my promise and meet my friend" means that I am under an obligation, but this may yield to a more pressing duty. A more modern usage prefers the title pro tanto obligation: an obligation that may be later overruled by another more pressing one; it exists only pro tempore. Other uses and references The phrase prima facie is sometimes misspelled in the mistaken belief that is the actual Latin word; however, faciē is in fact the ablative case of faciēs, a fifth declension Latin noun. In policy debate theory, prima facie is used to describe the mandates or planks of an affirmative case, or, in some rare cases, a negative counterplan. When the negative team appeals to prima facie, it appeals to the fact that the affirmative team cannot add or amend anything in its plan after being stated in