Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/458

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW
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422 HARVARD LAW REVIEW could not be distinguished, and the grazing resources of the country were often its chief resources. Hence the common-law rule was for the time being inapplicable to local conditions. It is significant that as the conditions that made the rule inapplicable have come to an end, the rule has generally been reestablished.* A rule that can thus re- assert itself is not a moribund archaism. It must have something sound behind it. A conspicuous case of the vitality of the common-law liability-with- out-fault of owners of animals is liability for injuries done by tress- passing animals, while on the land wrongfully, irrespective of scienter. On one ground or another, the current of authority has always heM the owner of the animal in such cases. ^ In some of these cases the person injured, or whose property on the land was injured, was in posses- sion of the land trespassed upon and was allowed to recover for the injury to person or chattel property by way of aggravation of the tres- pass on the land.^" But in others the action was Case,^^ and in still others the injury was to another than the owner in possession of the land.^2 In some the trespassing animal was a dog,^^ and it might be material that the owner was with him.^^ The only decision that re- quires a theory of aggravation of trespass to the realty to sustain re- covery for damage by a trespassing animal other than damage to the land is Van Leuven v. Lyke,^^ where it was held there could not be a recovery without either an averment of trespass upon land or an aver- ment of scienter.

  • Phillips V. Bynum, 145 Ala. 549, 39 So. 911 (1906); Puckett v. Young, 112

Ga. 578, 37 S. E. 880 (1901); Bulpit v. Matthews, 145 111. 345, 34 N. E. 525 (1893); Gumm V. Jones, 115 Mo. App. 597, 92 S. W. 169 (1906); State v. Mathis, 149 N. C. 546, 63 S. E. 99 (1908); Marsh v. Koons, 78 Ohio St. 68, 84 N. E. 599 (1908). 9 Beckwith v. Shordike, Burr. 2092 (1767); Lee v. Riley, 18 C. B. N. S. 722 (1865); McClain v. Lewiston Fair Ass'n, 17 Idaho, 63, 79, 104 Pac. 1015 (1909); Green v. Doyle, 21 111. App. 205 (1886); Decker v. Gammon, 44 Me. 322 (1857); Angus v. Radin, 2 South (N. J.) 815 (1820); Van Leuven v. Lyke, i N. Y. 515 (1848); Dolph V. Ferris, 7 Watts & Sergt. (Pa.) 367 (1844); Goodman i). Gay, 15 Pa. St. 188 (1850); Troth V. Wills, 8 Pa. Sup. Ct. i (1898); Chunot v. Larson, 43 Wis. 536 (1878); Doyle V. Vance, 6 Vict. L. R. (Law) 87 (1880). Contra, Sanders v. Teape, 51 L. T. N. S. 263 (trespassing dog) (1884); Bischoff ti. Cheney, 89 Conn, i (trespassing cat) (1914); Peterson v. Conlan, 18 N. D. 205, 119 N. W. 367 (1909). " Beckwith v. Shordike, Burr. 2092 (1767); Lee v. Riley, 18 C. B. N. S. 722 (1865); Van Leuven v. Lyke, i N. Y. 515 (1848); Dolph v. Ferris, 7 Watts & Sergt. (Pa.) 367 (1844); Chunot v. Larson, 43 Wis. 536 (1878). In the last case the court says: "The ground of liability rests upon a breach of the close, and the killing of the cow is alleged by way of aggravation of damages" (p. 541). In Van Leuven V. Lyke, supra, the court says: "The breaking and entering the close ... is the substantive allegation, and the rest is laid as a matter of aggravation only" (P- 517)- " Decker v. Gammon, 44 Me. 322 (1857); Green v. Doyle, 21 111. App. 205 (1886); Angus V. Radin, 2 South (N. J.) 815 (1820) (certiorari from a magistrate's court, which had no jurisdiction of trespass quare clausum). 12 McClain v. Lewiston Fair Ass'n, 17 Idaho, 63, 104 Pac. 1015 (1909); Troth v. WiUs, 8 Pa. Sup. Ct. i (1898). 1' McClain v. Lewiston Fair Ass'n, 17 Idaho, 63, 104 Pac. 1015 (1909); Green v. Doyle, 21 111. App. 205 (1886); Doyle v. Vance, 6 Vict. L. R. (Law) 87 (1880). " Woolf V. Chalker, 31 Conn. 121, 128 (1862) {semble). " I N. Y. 515 (1848).