Benoit v. Troy & L.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 23 November 1897 |
| Citation | 48 N.E. 524,154 N.Y. 223 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | BENOIT v. TROY & L. R. CO. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Third department.
Action by Julia Benoit, an infant, by Peter Benoit, her guardian, against the Troy & Lansingburgh Railroad Company. From a judgment of appellate division (40 N. Y. Supp. 1140) affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.
R. A. Parmenter, for appellant.
J. F. Crawford, for respondent.
The case was submitted to the jury upon two main propositions: First, whether the horses had the vicious propensity to run away, known to the defendant; and, second, whether Ladrick, the driver, was negligent in the management of the horses after they commenced to run, in reining them over to the left side of the street, and bringing the stoneboat to which they were attached into collision with the street curb, thereby wrenching the front plank of the stoneboat from its fastenings, and freeing the horses, so as to permit them to run on their way across the canal bridge, dragging the pole and whiffletrees, where they collided with the plaintiff, causing the injury in question. The court charged that, if the jury should find either of these propositions in the affirmative, the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict.
We are of opinion that neither of them was sustained by evidence, and that the exceptions taken by the defendant to their submission to the jury were well taken. The general principles which govern the liability of the owner of domestic animals for personal injury caused by them are well settled. The owner is not responsible for an injury to another, caused by kicking, biting, or other vicious propensity of such animal, unless the dangerous character of the animal was known to the owner. Such knowledge may be brought home to him by proof of prior acts of a similar kind to that charged in the complaint committed by the animal of which the owner had notice, or it may be imputed from its known dangerous character, as in the case of a ferocious Siberian bloodhound, kept by the owner for the protection of his premises, but allowed to be at large. Vrooman v. Lawyer, 13 Johns. 339;Van Leuven v. Lyke, 1 N. Y. 515;Muller v. McKesson, 73 N. Y. 195;Spring Co. v. Edgar, 99 U. S. 645. In the absence of such knowledge or notice, an injury caused by such animal gives no right of action; but when the vicious habit or characterof the animal becomes known to the owner, and he thereafter continues to keep the animal, he keeps it at his peril, and renders himself liable for any subsequent injury to another caused by its viciousness. This doctrine is founded on principles of humanity and the solicitude of the law for the protection of human life. The cases are frequent where actions have been maintained for injuries resulting from the bite of dogs, the biting or kicking of horses, the goring of bulls, or other animals. It was sought to apply the principle upon which these actions have been maintained, and to hold the owner to the same rule of responsibility in a case where the injury was caused by a collision with horses which had escaped from the control of their driver on a public street, and which, on a prior occasion, to the knowledge of the owner, had run away. It is conceded that, if the horses had run away for the first time on the occasion in question, there could be no recovery, because there would then be an absence of what is called ‘scienter,’ or, in other words, of prior knowledge of the propensity of the horses to run away. But this element is claimed to have been furnished by proof that, about 10 days prior to the accident in question, the horses had run away under similar circumstances, while being driven by the same driver, of which fact the company had notice. There is a suggestion in the evidence of the father of the plaintiff that on another occasion, prior to the one last mentioned, the horses ran away. But it is plain from the evidence of Ladrick, the defendant's witness, that the occasion mentioned by Benoit was the same one mentioned by the other witnesses, and that the horses had run away but once before the time when the injury happened. It was...
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Doerr v. Goldsmith
...(see Dickson, 39 N.Y. at 401 [op. of Dwight, J.]; cf. id. at 402–403 [op. of Grover, J.]; see also Benoit v. Troy & Lansingburgh R.R. Co., 154 N.Y. 223, 225–227, 48 N.E. 524 [1897] ) and which, as the Bard dissent conceded (see Bard, 6 N.Y.3d at 601–602, 815 N.Y.S.2d 16, 848 N.E.2d 463 [R.S......
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Doerr v. Goldsmith
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