DOGS AND THEIR LIABILITIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1420, 30 November 1886, Page 3

DOGS AND THEIR LIABILITIES.

We trust (says the Pall Mall Budget ) that Mr Addison will take the first opportunity to reintroloce his little bill with regard to the owners of dogs and their liabilities, which he presented last ession to the late House of Commons. The preamble of the bill recites the expediency of amending the law ‘'as to the liability of the owners of dogs for injuries done to mankind by such dogs”—a prop si-ion which no one is likely to dispute. Jn the present slate of the law a person who has been bitten by a dog has no remedy unless he can prove that the owner of the dog was aware of iis biting propensities. In fact, the right of action is based, not strictly speaking on the fact that the defendant’s dog had bitten the and the defendant was aware that the log was in the habit of biting people, " to gain some private end” or otherwise, but, on the fact that the defendant had continued to k‘*op the dog after knowledge of* its m'schieVJtn disposition. In tie o fashionea style f p eicling it used to bt , SJt out ‘•that tho defend»nt wr irgfully kept a dog of a fi rce ai d mischievous, nature and accustomed t > cite n>a kdnd, well km wmg that the said dog wat > f such n fibrei and mischievous nature and so accustrmed as aforesaid,” etc. Mt Addison’s bill proposes t> bring the law I and tho common fen-e of the quer-tiof.. i to accordance by simply providing that the owner of every dog shall be liatb in damages for it jury done to any person by his dog without it being necessary for the pafiy to show a previous mischievous propensity iu tiie dog, Oi the owner’s know- ; edge of such mischievous propensity. The sooner tie molest measure becomjr an Act i f Parliament the better.