A TRESPASSER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1932, Page 3

A TRESPASSER

HAND ON FENCE

Is a person a trespasser by putting his hand on a dividing fence when in search of information?

* The New South "Wales Tull Court, presided over by Mr. Justice Harvey, by Majority, held thatr such an act constituted trespass, and that a fence was not the place'for persons to make business or other inquiries, but the door or doors of a house,'says tho "Sydney Sun.?' : : i ;■

A few months ago Henry Simpson, of Trafalgar street, Stanmore, went to a fence of a residence at Birrell street, Bondi, and placed his hand on it. An Alsatian dog bit it. The dog was the property of John Gordon Bannerman.

Simpson sued Bannerrnan in the District Court, before Judge Edwards, and that Judge, in awarding him a verdict for £50 held that Hhe dog was savage, and that the keeping of an animal of a mischievous nature, which propensity was unknown to the plaintiff, constituted a source of danger to passers-by. Against Judge Edwards^ finding Bannerman appealed, and the Full Court upheld the appeal with costs. The Court also held that:. the owner of the dog was unaware that it would bite and had mischievous propensities.

Further,-it was.of the opinion thai, because an Alsatian dog was "large and powerful," it did not necessarily follow that it was "unnaturally savage."

Mr. Justice. Halse Bogers, who dissented, said that the trespass was a technical one, and that the plaintiff's rights were to be tested by-determining whether he was making a reasonable use of the highway.;