BlogLine

Who’s Liable for Letting the Dogs Out?

10/23/18

By: Wes Jackson

“Cry ‘Havoc!,’ and let slip the dogs of war.”
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar act 3, sc. 1.

 
Havoc indeed—in a case argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on October 10, two pit bulls slipped out of a tenant’s backyard gate with a broken latch and then mauled a woman walking her smaller dogs nearly two blocks away from the home. Police had to fatally shoot both dogs to end the attack, and the woman was life-flighted to a hospital where she stayed for seven days and was left disfigured after multiple surgeries.
The question before the Court was whether the landlord could be liable for the attack. The trial court entered summary judgment in the landlord’s favor because the plaintiff could not show the landlord had any prior knowledge of the dogs’ propensity for violence. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the question of the landlord’s liability should have been submitted to a jury.
The case exemplifies how thorny questions of proximate causation can jeopardize a defendant’s hopes at summary judgment. For example, the Court of Appeals found the trial court erred by failing to properly consider the fact that the landlord had known the gate latch was broken but failed to repair it. Additionally, the parties argued before the Court whether a landowner’s failure to keep the premises in repair could, as a matter of law, proximately cause an injury that happens more than two blocks away from the property. Given these arguments, the Supreme Court’s decision will likely either extend or limit the scope of landlords’ liability for injuries caused by their tenants or those that occur off the property.
The case is Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso et al., S18G0364. If you have any questions about this case or its impact on landlord liability, premises liability, or dog attack cases in Georgia, feel free to contact Wes Jackson at wjackson@fmglaw.com.