CHAPTER V. 



DANGEROUS ANIMALS. 



Whoever keeps an animal accustomed to attack and bite mankind 

 with knowledge that it is so accustomed, is iirlmd facie liable in an 

 action on the case, at the suit of any person attacked and injured by 

 the animal, without any averment of negligence or default in the securing 

 or taking care of it. The gist of the action is the Icccping the animal 

 after knowledge of its mischievous propensities {Mag v. Burdctt). But 

 2Jcr Curiam : " It may be that if the injury was solely occasioned by 

 the wilfulness of the plaintiflp, after warning, that may be a ground of 

 defence, by plea in confession and avoidance " {ib.). In Leame v. Brag, 

 Lord EUenhorough C.J. says : " If I pat in motion a dangerous thing, 

 as if I let loose a dangerous animal, and leave to hazard what may 

 happen, and mischief ensue to any person, I am answerable in trespass." 

 Lord Eolt C.J. also mentioned it as Lord Hale's opinion, that if throu"-h 

 negligence the beast go abroad, after the owner has had notice of its 

 mischievous qualities, and kill a man, it is manslaughter in the owner 

 {Rex V. Huggins, 2 Ld. Eaym. 1583). 



The argument in Jenkins v. Turner turned partly on what were the 

 animals which might be the subject of biting, within an owner's coo-ni- 

 zance. This was an action on the case against Turner j;ro eo quod 

 scienter retenuit a certain boar ad mordendum et iwrculicndum animalia 

 consuetum, and which percussit et momordd a mare of the plaintiff's, of 

 which bite she died. The boar had bitten a child before, of which the 

 defendant had notice. It was contended in arrest of judgment, that 

 " the word animalia was too general and uncertain, for it may be they 

 were such animals as, though the boar used to bite them, and the 

 defendant knew it, yet it would be no offence in the defendant to keep 

 the boar still ; as if the boar bit frogs and mice, which are animals." 

 Powell J. said, "that if a man has a dog which bites sheep, and the 

 man has notice of it and keeps the dog, and afterwards it bites a mare, 

 an action lies, but the declaration must be special." His lordship also 

 added, what certainly admits of considerable dispute, viz., that " there 

 may be a difference between a boar and a dog ; for it is the nature of a 



