A person who owns a dog has a duty to ensure that the dog is kept in a manner that will restrain it from causing harm to other people. People keep dogs for different purposes such as security guards, hunting and pets. A person who keeps a dog as a security guard or for hunting purposes has a higher standard of care to his fellow human being who may come into contact with them as a result of the special training given to them to make them unfriendly to third parties. Therefore a person who keeps a dog as a security guard such as the defendants in the case in point who kept the two dogs for that purpose, must ensure that they do not escape from their custody to threaten or harm people. It constitutes negligence where an owner of a dog allows the dog in his custody to escape to chase people or bite them.
it is not unlawful to keep a dog for a particular purpose but the person who is keeping the dog must ensure that it does not escape from his custody or control to cause harm. Where a dog escapes from the control of the owner and causes harm, the owner is held negligent for allowing it to escape.
the rule that you are to love your neighbor becomes in law, you must not injure your neighbor and the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor? Receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor. Who, then, in law is my neighbor? The answer seems to be- persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omission which are called in question
In an action claiming negligence, it is the duty of the Plaintiff to establish that the Defendant owed the Plaintiff a duty of care, that the Defendant is in breach of the duty of care and, that the breach has resulted in injury or damage to the Plaintiff.
The Tort of Negligence is a legal wrong that is suffered by someone at the hands of another who fails to take proper care to avoid what a reasonable person would consider a foreseeable risk. By this, the law imposes a duty of care on all persons in their relation with others so that the actions and inactions of a person does not culminate into the suffering of a resulting harm by another. Therefore, for an action in negligence to lie, the claimant must show that the defendant owed him a duty of care, that this duty of care has been breached by the defendant and that the Claimant has suffered harm by virtue of the breach.
