Our law firm was not involved in the personal injury lawsuit described in this article.
A recent Washington Court of Appeals decision considered arguments for landlord liability for dog bite injury. The plaintiff was injured in a common areas by a dog owned by another tenant. The plaintiff claimed that the dog had attacked other tenants in the past and that the landlord refused to evict the dog owner or take other corrective actions. The plaintiff named both the dog owner tenant and the landlord in a lawsuit. The trial court dismissed the landlord. The plaintiff appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.[1]
“The common law rule, which is the settled law of Washington, is clear: only the owner, keeper or harborer of such a dog is liable. The landlord of an owner, keeper or harborer is not.” Clemmons v. Fidler, 58 Wn. App. 32, 35-36, 791 P.2d 257, review denied, 115 Wn.2d 1019 (1990).
The Court of Appeals noted a case where a woman was mauled by a Bengal tiger, and the court concluded as a matter of law that landlords have no duty to protect third parties from a tenant’s lawfully owned, but dangerous, animals. “In short, liability flows from ownership or direct control.” Frobig v. Gordon, 124 Wn.2d 732, 735, 881 P.2d 226 (1994).
In Frobig, The victim unsuccessfully asserted that the landlord was both strictly liable and negligent. “Under Washington law, the landlords would not be liable to the tenant for the tiger’s attack, so should not be liable to third parties for injuries inflicted by the animal.” Frobig, 124 Wn.2d at 737.
In Clemmons and Frobig, which involved severe and life-threatening injuries, the court was asked to extend the common law rule by holding that a landlord is liable for harm caused by his tenant’s animal if the landlord knows that the animal has vicious tendencies. But each time, the courts declined, citing longstanding precedent and the statutory scheme of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 1973, RCW 59.18.060, which already governs landlords’ duties to tenants.
Under common law rules a dog owner who knows or reasonably should know of is liable if his dog’s dangerous propensities is liable for injuries caused by the dog, regardless of any negligence on the owner’s part. Sligar v. Odell, No. 64916-7-I, 2010 WL 2674037, at 3 (Wash. Ct. App. July 6, 2010), citing Beeler v. Hickman, 50 Wn. App. 746, 751, 750 P.2d 1282 (1988).
RCW 16.08.040 changed the common law rule by removing the requirement of actual or imputed knowledge and holding owners strictly liable for the injuries their dogs inflict:
The owner of any dog which shall bite any person while such person is in or on a public place or lawfully in or on a private place including the property of the owner of such dog, shall be liable for such damages as may be suffered by the person bitten, regardless of the former viciousness of such dog or the owner’s knowledge of such viciousness. (Emphasis added.)
The plaintiff argued that the landlord was an owner under a Seattle ordinance.
“Owner” means a person who harbors, keeps, causes or permits an animal to be harbored or kept, or who has an animal in his/her possession or custody, or who permits an animal to remain on or about his/her premises, or who has legal title to an animal. Seattle Municipal Code 9.25.022(B) (Ord. 122508 § 2, 2007).
He argued that the landlord satisfies this definition because it permits its tenants to keep animals in their apartments through pet leases.
The Court of Appeals did not find any intent within the Seattle Municipal Code to depart from the state rule and create landlord liability for injuries caused by tenants’ animals. The Court rules that such an interpretation of the Seattle Municipal Code would be strained and lead to absurd results. If a landlord were deemed to be the owner of tenants’ dogs merely by permitting the dogs on the premises through pet leases, the landlord would be subject to civil penalties for failure to license every dog owned by a tenant, and would also be liable if a tenant abused his own dog and ran afoul of animal cruelty laws.
The Court of Appeals ruled that upon reading the definition of “owner” in context with the ordinance as a whole, it should not be given a construction so expansive as to include landlords.
[1] Jennings v. Seattle Housing Authority, No. 63608-1-I (July 26, 2010)(unpublished).