ALL ABOUT A CAT AND DOG

Evening Star, Issue 14926, 12 July 1912, Page 9

ALL ABOUT A CAT AND DOG

Some very nice issues of law were raised in tiro case Glint on v. J. Lyons and Go., Ltd., which was decided in the Kings Bench Division on May 23 last by Mr Justice Ridicy and Mr Justice Bray on an appeal from the Westminster County Court. The facts of the case were simple enough, and not without considerable public interest. The plaintiff went to a tea- shop belonging to the defendants with a Pomeranian dog in her arms. While there she put the dog on the floor, retaining the lead in her hands. There was a cat. on the promises rearing kittens in a store room adjacent to the shop. There was evidence to show that the dog had been sniffing at the door of the store room, as it naturally would if it got the chance, but the jury in the County Court held that the cat had not been provoked. Be this as it may, the cat somehow got out ot the store room, and straightway went for the dog and bit ii. The, plaintiff picked up the dog while the cal was on it« back. The cat then fell off, and the dog .was handed to the plaintiff's husband. Then the cut sprang upon the plaintiffs shoulder and bit her in the arm, inflicting a wound from which blood-poisoning was alleged to have ensued. Were the defendants liable for the injury inflicted on the plaintiff or on the dog by the cat? In the County Court the jury held that they were answering in the negative a question which was put to them by the Judge in the following form: —“Did the deiendants take reasonable precautions funder the circumstances) for the safely of their customers?” Accordingly they awarded the plaintiff £IOO damages. On the face of it the finding of the jury might seem to a plain man to he a sound one. But, with the aid of many a subtle distinction, the law, as expounded by Mr Justice Ridley and Mr Justice Bray, has now pronounced it to be unsound, and, reversing the verdict of the jury, has entered judgment for the defendants. In his judgment recording this decision Mr Justice Ridley relied mainly on a- judgment formerly given by Lord Chief. Justice Bovill, in which the latter had said : ‘ A man is not generally responsible for what are not the ordinary consequences ol lus act, unless he be shown to have had knowledge of any fact which made it probable that the consequences, though not ordinarv, would result from the act. The J edges held that a cat when rearing kittens is not dangerous to mankind as such, and is not therefore an animal fera) mitune in that sense. It it had been the oeiendants would have been liable,, because a person keeping such an animal is liable for the consequences, however arising. T here was no danger until the dog appeared on the scene, and this was primarily a danger to the dog. and only incidentally a danger to human beings associated with Lie dog and interfering to protect it.. That is rather a subtle distinction, seeing that a lady recognised as an expert on eats stated in evidence that “cats rearing kittens. are inclined to be (savage and in a vicious state. If such a cat smelt the dross of the plaintiff, who had been carrying a dog, it might attack her—that is, if it was in a vicious state or had been. fright cued.” However, knowledge of this kind is not, perhaps, to be expected of all owners of cuts, ftn this view, it was the dog that caused all the mischief, and not the inherent viciousness of the cat. On the other Itand. it was contended by counsel for the plaintiff that a cat in the circumstances described must be accounted fera; untune, and therefore dangerous to mankind, because it is vicious towards such, of mankind as are carrying dogs, just as a bull bus been held to be vicious to wards such of mankind as are wearing red ties. Here, however. Mr Justice, Rid lev d;vw another subtle distinction. “I think,” he said, “that a bull which is vicious to persona wearing a ml tie may well attack a person without one. But the hostility of eat and dog, on the other hand, has passed into a proverb, and I am not •disposed to say that if a eat attacks a dog. and by accident a -person who happens to be there, the cat ie therefore dangerous to .mankind. I think that the cat is not to be classed os dangerous to mankind., but that the bull is.” Having by this rather fine-drawn train of reasoning decided in the negative the question whether the cat in the viiaumstanccs was to be field to be an animal /'era* jiatiirar*. and therefore dangerous as such to mankind, the Court then proceeded to consider whether the defendants had incurred any liability at all. This, too, after a careful consideration and analysis of cases cited in point, it decided also in the negative. Relying on the judgment of Lord Chief Justice Bovill. quoted above, Mr Justice Ridley said : “ I have come to the conclusion that the defendants are not answerable for what happened. because it was not an ordinary consequence of their act, there being n<; evidence that they had any reason to exoect it.” We take for granted, as a mat ter of course, that the learned Judge was satisfied that, as a matter of fact, then was no such evidence. Otherwise a plain man might be disposed to ask why the cat was shut up in the store room, a.s tin Judge said it was. and whether there war no negligence on the part of the _defendants or their servants in allowing it to gel out. On this point certain obiter dicta o! the Judge would seem to be not wholly ir relevant. “ The hostility of cat and doc has. passed into a proverb.” T ncretoro. i! the defendants permitted a. deg to be brought on the premises, as it appears they did. they' must surely have known that if a cat shut up in a, cupboard with her kittens is allowed to escape the proverbial hostility of cat and, dog will forth-

with bo manifested, and that “ accidents ’’ aro not unlikely to happen to “persons who happen to bo there.” However, the plain man who took this view would clearly be wrong. Two Judges of the High Court have derided otherwise, and Mr Justice Bray, with whom Mr Justice Ridley concurred, also stated his reasons for holding that the defendants were not liable to pay damages for the injury done to the plaintiff’s dog. The .moral seems to be, that people vMio love their clogs and care for their own skins had better not take their dogs into tea shops, even if the proprietors of the tea. shop are so complaisant as to allow them to do so without demur.-— 1 The Times.’