Posted on 11/06/2009 1:09:02 PM PST by Chet 99
It has long been the law in Massachusetts, and in many other states, that if your dog causes injury, you are liable regardless of whether or not you were negligent. This is called "strict liability" and imposes automatic liability on the dog "owner".
However, if you were suing a landlord that was not the dog owner, you had to show that the dog had "vicious propensities" prior to the attack and that the landlord knew or had reason to know of those propensities.
In the case of Nutt v. Florio, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled that where the dog at issue was a pit bull, the issue of the landlords negligence may go to the jury for a determination of whether or not "the dog had dangerous propensities, whether the defendants knew or should have known about them, and, if so, what actions would have been reasonable, in light of their duty as landlords to protect tenants from reasonably foreseeable risk of harm."
In effect, the court is saying that if a pit bull is involved , you don't necessarily have to show that the dog attacked in the past. The landlords knowledge that a dog is or may be aggressive may impose a burden on a landlord to be alert for their tenants safety, particularly where there are complaints from other tenants, or other evidence of "potential" aggression. As stated by Lawyers Weekly, a landlord may now be liable for injuries even though the landlord was not the animals owner and there was no evidence that the animal had ever attacked anyone before.
Bruce A. Bierhans
Since some rental contracts prohibit the ownership of firearms, can they also be held liable for rape, assault, and home invasions?
So why don’t they just come out and ban pitbulls, why hose up 200 years of jurisprudence to single out a type of animal prohibited. Typical bullshit over lawyering.
It puts pitbulls as the same as a loaded weapon — which is pretty accurate
It is merely a presumption shift. I don’t think it is quite as egregious as you make it out to be.
But the net effect will be what you say — no one will allow pitbulls in their houses.
Neither is a problem if the owner is not so irresponsible as to leave them laying around.
>>Neither is a problem if the owner is not so irresponsible as to leave them laying around.<<
I think that is the point.
And if landlord refuses to rent to an individual because he has a Pit Bull? Can the owner then sue for discrimination if there is another dog, say a German Shepherd, in the complex?
Too late, Kennedy’s already dead.
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