In the case now under consideration the undisputed evidence makes it clear that the defendant fully discharged the duty of using due care to prevent the escape of his dog from his premises, and that the plaintiff’s injury was not due to any neglect in that regard upon his part. She was bitten in the early morning, between half-past six and seven o’clock. On the preceding evening the defendant shut the dog in his carpenter shop (which adjoined his dwelling) and locked him in. During the night the dog gnawed away the woodwork from around the lock of the door to such an extent that the lock became detached, thus permitting the door to open and the dog to escape. That a reasonably prudent man would not have anticipated any such occurrence must be admitted.
The judgment under review should be affirmed.[[271]]
CROWLEY v. GROONELL
Supreme Court, Vermont, February 9, 1901.
Reported in 73 Vermont Reports, 45.
Case for an injury to the plaintiff by the defendant’s dog. Plea, the general issue. Trial by jury, Rutland County, March Term, 1900, Rowell, J., presiding. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant excepted.
It appeared that the plaintiff, an old man, was a neighbor of the defendant and went one morning to the defendant’s barn, where the latter was, to buy some potatoes of him; that when the plaintiff got near the barn, the defendant’s dog, which was large, and was lying near the barn door, assaulted the plaintiff by jumping up and putting his feet upon him and throwing him down, breaking his hip. The testimony was conflicting as to whether this assault was vicious or playful and as to the propensities of the dog known to the plaintiff.
Watson, J. The only exception upon which the defendant relies is the one to that part of the charge where the court said that a cross and savage disposition on the part of the dog was not necessary in order to impose liability; that a mischievous propensity to commit the kind of assault complained of was enough if the plaintiff’s case was otherwise made out; and that in respect to imposing liability, it made no difference whether such assault proceeded from good nature or ill nature, from ugliness or playfulness.
The defendant contends that the duty of restraint attaches only when the owner or keeper has reason to apprehend that the dog may do damage by reason of its viciousness or ferocity, and that the acts of the dog, proceeding from good nature or playfulness, cannot render the defendant liable. If a man have a beast that is ferae naturae as a lion, a bear, a wolf, if he get loose and do harm to any person, the owner is liable to an action for damages, though he have no particular notice that he had done any such thing before. The same principle applies to damages done by domestic animals, except that as to them, the owner must have seen or heard enough to convince a man of ordinary prudence of the animal’s inclination to commit the class of injuries complained of. With notice to the owner of such propensity in the animal, he is liable for whatever damages may be suffered by person or property therefrom. It makes no difference whether the animal was of cross and savage disposition and committed the injury by reason of its viciousness and ferocity, or whether such injury resulted from good nature and playfulness—the intent of the animal is not material. The owner or keeper having knowledge of its disposition to commit such injuries must restrain it at his peril, and it is no answer to say that the animal was not cross or savage and was in good nature and playfulness.
In State v. McDermott, 6 Atl. Rep. 653 [49 N. J. Law, 163], at the close of the plaintiff’s evidence, the defendant moved for a nonsuit on the ground that it did not appear that the dog had bitten McDermott maliciously, and also on the ground that there was no evidence that the dog had bitten other persons except in play, or that the defendant had knowledge of the propensity of the dog to bite. The motion was overruled. It was contended that although several persons had been bitten by the dog, of which the defendant had notice, yet it appeared that in every instance the biting occurred while the dog was in a playful mood; that damages could not be recovered where it was shown that the dog had a propensity to bite only in play; and that to justify a recovery, it must appear that the dog was in the habit of biting mankind while in an angry mood, actuated by a ferocious spirit. It was held that this was not the law,—that an action could be maintained against the owner by a party injured upon evidence that a dog, with the knowledge of the owner, had a mischievous propensity to bite mankind, whether in anger or not; for in either case, the person bitten would suffer injury, and that mischievous propensity, within the meaning of the law, was a propensity from which injury is the natural result.