It is correct to say that, in the absence of any direct evidence of a defendant's negligence, a court is entitled to draw reasonable inferences from the known circumstantial facts.
In Holloway v McFeeters (1956) 94 CLR 470 the majority decided that it was possible to infer that the unidentified driver had been negligent, and that this negligence had contributed to McFeeters' death.
The court said: "All that is necessary is that according to the course of common experience the more probable inference from the circumstances that sufficiently appear by evidence or admission, left unexplained, should be that the injury arose from the defendant's negligence. By more probable is meant no more than that upon a balance of probabilities such an inference might reasonably be considered to have some greater degree of likelihood".
Dixon CJ delivered a dissenting judgment, saying that any inference must at least be the most probable reasonable deduction from the established facts. On the facts of this case, he was unable to reach that conclusion.