Prima facie

[3] In most legal proceedings, one party has a burden of proof, which requires it to present prima facie evidence for all of the essential facts in its case.

[4] A prima facie case might not stand or fall on its own; if an opposing party introduces other evidence or asserts an affirmative defense, it can be reconciled only with a full trial.

For example, in a trial under criminal law, the prosecution has the burden of presenting prima facie evidence of each element of the crime charged against the defendant.

An aim of the doctrine of prima facie is to prevent litigants from bringing spurious charges which simply waste all other parties' time.

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 phrase prima facie is sometimes misspelled prima facia in the mistaken belief that facia is the actual Latin word; however, faciē is in fact the ablative case of faciēs, a fifth declension Latin noun.

A common usage of the phrase is the concept of a "prima facie speed limit", which has been used in Australia and the United States.