HOUSE GORED BY BULL.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2742, 7 September 1923, Page 8

HOUSE GORED BY BULL.

APPEAL DISMISSED. At the Palmerston North sitting of the Supreme Court yesterday, Mr Justice Hoskirig gave reserved judgment in the appeal case between Joseph Edwards .appellant (Mr McGregor), and J. Rawlins, respondent' (Mr Cooper), wherein the appellant sought to recover damages from respondent, for the loss of a horse belonging to him, which had boen gored by respondent's bull, and had, in consequence, to be destroyed. His Honour stated that the Magistrate had held that there was no,proof at* scienter on the part of the respondent. Boyond that lie had set out no findings of fact, but had appended notes of the evidence taken, and from these his Honour gathered that the horse, it being grazed in a paddock belonging ta one'* Hocking. The •paddock adjoined the respondent's farm, on which he kept cattle, including the bull complained of. It was, therefore, he considered, fairly deducible from the evidence that the bull had entered the paddock from the farm and gored the horse. Miss Hocking said that the dividing fence, which, at the was in a broken-down condition, was originally all right, but had been damaged awing to the bull continually breaking- through. Hi 3 Honour was not sure that, even before the advent of tho bull, the fence was in a sound state, but, assuming it was, it had not a sufficient number of wires to comply with any of the specific descriptions of the Fencing Act, 1908. If it was a fence that the owners had mutually agreed upon in writing, there was no evidence of that, as uia Honour thought there should have been, if the appellant desired to place reliance on such an agreed fence, and the appellant not being the exclusive occupied of the paddock, he could not sue for trespass. Assuming the appellnnt to have been an occupier of the land and the injury to the horse to havo been a natural and probable consequence of tho trespass by the bull, it was plain from tho premises that he could not recover in trespass. There was nothing to Indicate that the bull was disposed to goro the horse. Indeed, the fact that the bull had entered the paddock so often before, without doing any harm to the horse, served to show that harm to the horse was not likely to be a consequence of the bull getting into the paddock. There was no evidence of negligence toward appellant in the keeping of the bull. Tho law was clear, said his honour, that in order to, recover damages in such a case, knowledge of the special vice of tho animal must be proved. In this case, scionter was not proved. The appeal was. therefore, dismissed, with costs £G 6/ and disbursements.