Foreseeability of dog behavior & dog bites

     The concept of foreseeability can be applied to dog bite and dog related injury legal cases if it is understood that dog behavior is function of both the temperament of the dog and the habits and behavior the dog has previously displayed in specified contexts. A dog's past behavior in a particular context is often significant predictor of its future behavior in that context. Dog behavior is often contextually driven; hence, a dog's behavior in one context may not generalize to its behavior in a different context. The various kinds of aggression in dogs (territory, fear, predatory dominance, etc.),is a good example of how canine behavior is tied to context.

     Foreseeability is frequently an issue in dog bite litigation, and an animal behaviorist - after careful evaluation of fact pattern of any particular case - can render opinion about whether the behavior of the dog that led to the injury of the plaintiff should have been an event that was foreseeable.

Example: Foreseeability of jumping-up in a great Dane

     An example of how foreseeability can be applied to a case involving dog related injury, happened when a large great Dane suddenly jumped causing its head to forcibly smash into the face of a lady who just started to bend over to interact with the dog. The dog was was laying in a prone position. The victim, a model and television personality by occupation, was a guest at the home of the owner, and she sustained fractured and broken front teeth causing noticeable cosmetic damage. Several minutes prior to the occurrence of this incident, the owner was roughhousing and playing with the dog, but then the dog momentarily settled down before the incident happened. The legal question was whether it was foreseeable this incident would occur given the behavioral history of the dog and the context in which the incident happened? Was the owner of the dog under duty to prevent injury to his guest? Was the owner negligent in failing to take steps to isolate or control the dog? In short, was this incident foreseeable?

     This case was considered by the 9th circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 (Kereluk v. Fabio). The court's ruling affirmed the decision of the district court. In an unpublished decision, the court ruled: "an owner's duty to prevent injury under California's law of negligence, did not extend to anticipating harm under the circumstances given California limits a dog owner's duty to avoiding only those harms which are reasonably foreseeable….. The defendant would be under a duty to prevent injury to the plaintiff only if he had reason to know that his dog had the characteristic of quickly jumping up from a prone position although appearing to be calm after playing. He also would have to know that this characteristic created a foreseeable risk of harm. The plaintiff did not presented evidence that the dog had Himever acted similarly before, or that the act is in itself harmful. The defendant could not have anticipated that the plaintiff would bend over at the same moment that the dog jumped up. Since the concurrence of these two events was necessary to cause the accident, and since it was not foreseeable that the two events would occur at the same moment, the district court correctly determined that the defendant could not have been under a legal duty to prevent the accident."