'Duty to Warn' Irrelevant for Negligence in Dog Attack
by
Joseph C. Maya on May. 01, 2017
Accident & Injury Accident & Injury Animal Bite Lawsuit & Dispute Dispute Resolution
Summary: Blog post about a determination that the rescue agency that transferred a dog to a family had no duty to warn them of the dog's propensity for aggression.
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Counts in a complaint against a dog rescue agency for common law negligence and recklessness failed to state a claim. The agency, as the transferor of a pit-bull dog that attacked another dog as it was being walked, did not have a duty to warn the family that had adopted the dog if its dangerous and aggressive propensities.
A dog a rescue agency placed with an adoptive family attacked a dog that was being walked on a leash. The owners of that dog filed suit, alleging counts of common-law negligence and recklessness against the agency based on the agency's failure to warn the adoptive family about the dog's dangerous and aggressive propensities. Those counts failed to state a claim. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 22-357 had not been expanded to include transferor's of dogs, and the court declined to declined to expand the scope of common-law negligence and recklessness to impose a duty on the agency to relay the information to the adoptive family. The Court found no particular duty of care arising from any specific knowledge by the defendant that this dog had aggressive tendencies and would be more likely than not to attack third parties when unleashed and unattended by the actual owners, keepers, or harborers of the subject dog. The Court finds at this stage that the complaint does not support an expansion of common-law negligence in this particular area nor by implication the expansion of the dog bite statute which is not being relied on specifically in these said two counts. Since there does not appear to be any controlling or compelling Connecticut cases to rely upon, the Court looks elsewhere. In the Missouri case of Miles v. Rich v. Humane Society of Missouri, 347 S.W.3d 477, 2011 Mo.App. Lexis 557 (2011), that Court's rationale can be adopted to this case: "The fact that a humane society may be liable in tort in other factual situations does not support an argument that it can be liable in common law negligence for harm caused by a dog it did not own, possess, harbor, or control under the facts alleged in this case."The motion to strike was granted.
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Source: Dutka v. Cassady, 2012 Conn. Super. LEXIS 1901 (Conn. Super. Ct. Jul 24, 2012)
