ATTACKED BY PONY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20142, 11 January 1940, Page 5

ATTACKED BY PONY

WOMAN AWARDED £3OO JUDGE’S DECISION UPSET LONDON, Dec. 15. Miss Ethel M. Aldham, of The Mall, Kensington, who was awarded £3OO damages by a King’s Bench jury for injuries from a milk-cart pony, appealed successfully against the judge's decision denying her damages and entering judgment for the United Dairies (London), Limited. The dairy company was refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords. Miss Aldham alleged that the pony was standing with its forefeet on. the pavement and as she passed it seized the lapel of her coat, dragged Ivor into tiie gutter, grazed her face with its teeth, and "pawed” her. The dairy company, said the pony was very quiet and docile, that 'there had never been any previous complaint about it, and that their roundsman was not negligent in leaving the pony unattended.

Originally in the King’s Bench Division, Mr. Justice Humphreys entered judgment for the company on the ground that the owner of a domestic animal is not responsible for personal injuries caused by that animal unless he knows (hat il has some such propensity, and that there was no evidence in this case that the company knew of this propensity.

The Master of the Rolls, allowing Miss Aldham’s appeal, said that to leave a horse and cart unattended on the highway was not, in itself, an act of negligence, but to leave a horse and cart on the highway in circumstances in which the driver, as a reasonable man, should have known that tiie horse was likely to injure a member of the public was negligence. The .jury’s finding was that the injury to Miss Aldham was caused by the act of negligence in leaving unattended an animal which was known to be in the habit of putting bis forefeet on tiie pavement and to be restive