THE DOG AND THE LAW. 
negligence on the part of the car driver at 
the time of the accident, he will find the law 
ever ready to assist him. In most cases no 
doubt the motor owner pays without recourse 
to law, and in nearly all cases he is probably 
insured against such accidents, but if he 
refuses to pay voluntarily, and the owner 
of the dog is reasonable and proper in his 
demands, a necessary action at law may as 
a rule be entered upon with every confidence 
by the latter. 
A dog has every bit as much right to the 
high road as a motor car. Efforts have been 
made on the part of motor owners to get 
the Courts to hold that dogs on a high road 
are only under proper control if on a “lead,” 
and that if they are noton a “lead” the owner 
of them is guilty of negligence in allowing 
his dog to stroll about, and therefore is not 
entitled to recover: such efforts have not 
been successful. In the first place, even 
supposing a Court to hold that the fact of a 
dog being loose in this way or unaccompanied 
was evidence of negligence against his 
owner—and as far as the writer is aware no 
Court has held any such thing—this would by 
no means defeat his owner’s claim, for the 
law is, that though a plaintiff may have 
been negligent in some such way as this, yet 
if the defendant could, by the exercise of 
reasonable care, have avoided the accident, 
the plaintiff can still recover. There are 
several cases that decide this valuable 
principle, but there is especially one which 
is best quoted in any such action, viz. 
Davies v. Mann (10 M.and W. 546). In that 
case the owner of a jackass, which had been 
negligently left hobbled and unguarded on 
a highway, sued the defendant, by the 
negligence of whose servant in driving along 
the highway at too rapid a speed the jackass 
wasrun over and injured. Baron Parke in his 
judgment says, “ Although there may have 
been negligence on the part of the plaintiff, 
yet unless he might bythe exercise of ordinary 
care have avoided the consequence of 
defendant’s negligence he is entitled to 
recover. Although the ass may have been 
wrongfully on the high road, still defendant 
was bound to go along the road at such a 
pace as would be likely to prevent mischief. 
565 
If this were not so a man might justify the 
driving over goods left on a public highway, 
or even over a sleeping man, or the purposely 
running against a carriage going on the 
wrong side of the road.” 
Another method by which the motor 
owner endeavours to escape liability is by 
contending that the accident was a sudden 
one, so sudden that it was inevitable, that 
nothing that he could have done would have 
prevented it, and that he did everything that 
it was possible to do. 
If, however, the motor is going slowly, 
these accidents do not occur, and a motorist 
in going along a road must have due regard 
for all things that may occur, and must 
always remember that he is not entitled to 
go along at such a pace as would be likely 
to cause accident. In a case decided a 
short time back the motor driver proved 
that the dog was in a ditch, and just as he 
passed by it jumped out in front of him, and 
did not give him time to pullup. The Court 
held that that was no answer to the claim, 
that the driver, knowing full well the eccen- 
tricities of a dog, ought to have been pre- 
pared for such a contingency taking place ; 
instead of this he, knowing the dog was 
there, took the risk, did not slow up at all, 
and must pay the penalty. 
An interesting and certainly far-reaching 
case is Millns v. Garratt, which came up 
on appeal from the Gravesend County Court, 
in March, 1906, before a Divisional Court 
presided over by the Lord Chief Justice. 
In this case the plaintiff and another man 
were riding along a road on bicycles, when 
a dog, which it was found was blind, ran 
in front of them, and collided with the 
plaintiff’s machine, which caused him to 
be thrown violently to the ground, and 
severely injured him. It appeared that the 
dog had been shouted at, and escaped the 
leading bicycle, but ran into the other, and 
it was admitted that he had run into the 
road of his own accord entirely unaccom- 
panied, and was blind. The County Court 
judge held that the accident was caused by 
the blindness of the dog, that it was dangerous 
to traffic, and that there was no evidence of 
precautions being taken to prevent it 
