: What is probatio diabolica? I came upon this phrase when I’m reading this novel. I googled it but I’m still confused.
In: 3
Probatio diabolica = diabolical proof.
The law requires proof for a lot of things – the common layman’s example is evidence in a murder case, but in a civil case you could have to prove wrongdoing, negligence, damages, etc.
Now, normally, the law is very clear about who has to prove what and to what degree. However, sometimes it’s impossible to prove something within the usual boundaries of the law, which make it an unfair demand.
Say for example you invent the world’s best cupcake and patent the whole recipe (not a literal example – instead of a cupcake recipe it would be a manufacturing process). Great, now you can sell your special cupcakes, and legally speaking, no one else can use your special recipe.
But you find out that your competitor across ths street is making cupcakes suspiciously like your special cupcake recipe makes, and you know it’s because they’re illegally making your cupcakes.
Now, normally you’d have to prove that a violation of the law against recipe theft occurred. But you can’t do that because you don’t have access to the other bakery’s kitchen, and you can’t exactly break in and watch.
So that’s “the devil’s proof”. You need to be able to prove in a court of law that they used your cupcake recipe, but there’s no legal way to do it!
Rather than this being a massive legal loophole where you can steal recipes if you just hide it a little, the court handles this impossible proof by changing something about the way usual court procedure goes.
It can either shift what is called “the burden of proof” (ie, whose job it is to prove things to the court – usually the plaintiff in a civil case or the prosecutor in a criminal case) or it can grant special allowances to the person who face this “diabolical proof” so they can gather evidence for proof.
If they shift the burden of proof, then you, the plaintiff (from the same root as complain – the person who has the problem and brings it to the court) no longer have to prove that your rival baker stole your recipe. Your rival baker has to prove that they have their own recipe – the “burden of proof”, or responsibility to prove facts in a case, has shifted to the defendant (person defending themself in court).
If they grant those special allowances, then you as the plaintiff get to request and receive information from your rival baker. In every civil court case there is a process by which you gather all the stuff that could reasonably be used as evidence in the case, and both sides look at it. In this case, you’d get to look at their recipe and compare it to yours via this special discovery rule.
Of course, instead of special family cupcake recipes, these are patented manufacturing processes and patent law is horribly complicated, but the basic idea is that sometimes the Normal Legal Procedure says “give proof” but in your specific case you don’t have access to the actual evidence, so the court can turn to the other people involved and say “okay, prove this didn’t happen”.
Usually under very specific circumstances because it’s usually unfair to ask someone to prove something didn’t happen!
Edit: if you didn’t mean the legal term then oops!
Latest Answers