A recent dog-bite injury case in the Massachusetts Appeals Court is instructive on the elements of negligence in Massachusetts.
To prevail on a personal injury negligence claim, a Plaintiff must prove that they were owed a duty of reasonable care, that the Defendant breached that duty, damages resulted and that there was a causal link between the breach of their duty and the damages resulting.
For example in a typical automobile collision case, a driver on the road owes everyone the duty to drive reasonably, if the driver breaches that duty and causes a collision resulting in personal injuries, then the injured person has the right to make a claim for negligence.
In the case of landowners, generally they do not owe a duty to protect people from the actions of others on their property. However, there can be a duty where there a special relationship between the landowner and the harmed person, where the harmed person would have expected the landowner to take protective steps.
This can come up in cases where hotels, colleges or taverns are the owners of the property and they would be expected to protect their patrons.
Similarly, for landlords this relationship can exist for their tenants. For instance, it has been found that a landlord has the duty to be reasonable in protecting one tenant from another tenant's dangerous pit-bull.
In a recent case Creatini v. McHugh, the plaintiff was attacked by a pit-bull on a public street. The plaintiff sought to recover from the owner of the property where a tenant of the owner had housed the pit-bull.
The court determined that the landowner was not negligent because the landowner could not have reasonably foreseen the pit-bull would attack anyone because the record did not reflect that the landowner was aware of the dog's aggressive nature or to attack passer-bys.
In making this determination, the Court stated there was no reason to treat a pit-bull as a dangerous instrumentality, which would require the landowner of the property to take closest attention and most careful precautions as required for firearms, explosives, poisonous drugs or high tension electricity.
What did we learn? It can sometimes be difficult to know who is and is not responsible for injuries caused in differing circumstances. It is important to build the record and establish the key elements of negligence.
Call us to discuss any injuries so that we can give you advice, dog bite or otherwise.
Creatini v. McHugh, 99 Mass. App. Ct. 126 (2021).
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