It has long been the law in Maryland that the owner of a domestic animal with knowledge that the animal has a propensity to cause a particular harm (commonly called in legal terms a “vicious propensity”) is strictly liable if that animal causes that harm to another. A pet owner can also be responsible, even if the animal has shown no such propensity if she is negligent in failing to control the animal under the circumstances. Most counties have “leash laws” to try to make sure that dogs in particular are confined or under control. Tragic stories about dogs such as pit bulls have led some jurisdictions, like Prince George’s County, to enact special statutes dealing with specific breeds of animals.
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals recently took this a step further in the case of Moore v. Myers. Mr. Myers owned a pit bull, and he allowed his wife’s 15 year old son to take the animal from the yard without a leash. The plaintiff, a 12 year old girl suing through her mother, claimed that the 15 year old threatened her with the dog and when it came after her, she fled into the street and was struck by a car. The trial judge threw the case out against the owner of the animal, ruling that there was no causal connection between the owner allowing the boy to take possession of the dog and this accident.
The appellate court held that there were issues for the jury to decide, and sent the case back for trial. It first held that the pit bull statute was designed to prevent incidents of the very type involved here, and that it was at least arguably foreseeable and contemplated by the law that persons could be injured trying to flee from unrestrained animals such as this. By not confining the dog in an enclosed space, or keeping it on a leash in the control of an adult, the Court said the owner had violated the statute and this violation could make him liable for the car accident that followed.
The Court also held that a second theory could impose liability on the dog owner, “negligent entrustment.” That theory had previously been applied in Maryland typically where a car owner had entrusted a motor vehicle to a driver whom the owner should know was likely, due to a poor driving record or other circumstances, to cause harm with the vehicle. Since the legal principle applied to “chattel” (property, not just cars), the Court held that a pit bull was such a chattel and the doctrine could apply. It then went further to hold that a jury could find that Mr. Myers was negligent in entrusting the pit bull to the 15 year old who foreseeably could not control him, resulting in the plaintiff’s injury.
This case marks another step in the law addressing the risk of allegedly dangerous animals like pit bulls, and puts animal owners on notice of the risks of not controlling them.
