Dog and other pet owners and insurers in New York are now exposed to increased risk of liability in the wake of a Court of Appeals ruling that allows an injured party to bring an ordinary negligence claim against a domestic animal owner for the first time.
The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has ruled that domestic animal owners may be held liable for an injury if they are deemed negligent for failing to exercise due care under the circumstances that caused their injury.
That’s a broader standard than the strict liability theory that has been in place for decades and holds that a dog owner could only be held strictly liable if the owner knew or should have known the animal had “vicious propensities.”
Now plaintiffs alleging injury can pursue one or both theories of liability against an animal owner.
“A plaintiff who suffers an animal-induced injury therefore has a choice. If the owner knew or should have known the animal had vicious propensities, the plaintiff may seek to hold them strictly liable. Or they can rely on rules of ordinary negligence and seek to prove that the defendant failed to exercise due care under the circumstances that caused their injury. Of course, a plaintiff might also assert both theories of liability, as Flanders chose to do,” the court explained.
Flanders refers to Rebecca Flanders, a postal worker who while handing a package to a homeowner on an inside porch was attacked by the homeowners’s unrestrained 70 lb. dog. The dog bit her shoulder, causing an injury that required multiple surgeries and resulted in permanent scarring.
Flanders sued under the state’s traditional dog bite theory of strict liability that the owner knew or should have known about the dog’s “propensity to do any act that might endanger the safety of the persons and property of others in a given situation.”
Flanders also sued under the theory of negligence, despite its precedent (Bard v Jahnke) set in 2006 that negligence did not apply in such circumstances. Flanders asked the court to overrule Bard and recognize negligence as an alternative to strict liability for injuries caused by domestic animals.
