One of the typical kinds of cases handled by personal injury lawyers are what are called premises liability cases, where someone typically falls and is injured due to an alleged dangerous condition on the premises. As reported Monday in the Daily Record, last week a Montgomery County jury heard a rather unusual variation on this type of case, an injury from a fall due to an attack at a shopping center by a Canadian goose.
The case of Webster v. Contemporary Water Crafters, Inc. illustrates how the law deals even with such situations.
According to the Daily record, Webster alleged that she was injured when a Canadian goose ran into her, causing her to fall down and fracture her hip. The evidence was that the previous year a pair of the geese had nested at the shopping center. The plaintiff claimed that the owner of the center and a retailer knew of the geese, and intended to build fencing around the nesting site to keep them out the following year. The geese arrived earlier than the defendants expected, and laid eggs.
The defendants claimed that because the birds were protected by law, there was nothing they could do to remove them or the eggs. The plaintiff said the situation was made worse because employees at the center fed the geese and told customers in their newsletter about them. The defendants claimed they warned customers that the male goose could be very aggressive.
This may sound like a dog bite case, where a pet owner gets sued when its dog bites or attacks someone. Those cases actually proceed on a different legal theory than premises liability. There is a separate body of Maryland law that holds that the owner of a domesticated animal who has knowledge of its propensity to cause a particular harm (such as a prior bite) is liable if the animal causes the same harm again. A pet owner may also be liable for negligent failure to control their animal, such as by violating a leash law.
Since these geese were not domesticated pets but wild animals, the claim was made under premises liability law. An owner or occupier of land owes different duties to someone who comes on the land under Maryland law, depending on the status of the person who enters their property. A trespasser, for example is owed practically no duty other than not to intentionally harm the trespasser.
Webster would be a business invitee at the shopping center, one who is invited to enter the premises to do business with the owner or others occupying the shopping center. Such a person is owed a duty of reasonable care to see that those portions of the property the invitee may encounter are safe, or to warn of dangerous conditions that cannot be made safe.
The jury in this case would have been instructed on these principles of premises liability law. This jury after deliberating for a couple of hours found in favor of the defendants on the issue of fault, so that no money was awarded. While its tempting to note that this goose laid no golden egg, the case illustrates how this area of law can address even wild animals.