Firstly, there has been a lot happening with claims involving injuries caused by dogs. It is now difficult to log on to a news website without finding a report of a dog attack or a proposed amendment to legislation relating to the control of dogs.
To talk about where we are now and what the future in animal claims might look like, we should first look back at the trends in this area from over the last few years.
A starting point of the increased media around dogs appeared to be during the pandemic when dog ownership in the UK was reported to have increased significantly.
The report provided detail of an incident where a person was attacked and bitten by a dog and the issues that person faced in recovering compensation. The article quoted the injured person’s solicitor who specialises in claims for injuries caused by dogs.
An article in the Guardian on 15 April 2021 with the headline, “Dog-Bite Britain: the problem with the pandemic puppy explosion,” set out figures on the increase in dog ownership during the pandemic and claims following on from that.
That has seen an increase in the take up of pet insurance and with that a rise in third party claims for injury where that injury has been caused by a dog.
This highlights that it is not just that there are more cases involving injuries caused by dogs, but claimant lawyers are alive to them.
Following on from this, it is important that pet and other insurers that face such claims have their own procedures in place to ensure that cases are dealt with efficiently in order to minimise overall legal spend and, in the right circumstances, appropriate defences are maintained to ensure that it is only the actionable and appropriate cases where compensation is paid.
The reported increase in dog attacks has more recently culminated in a focus on attacks by XL Bullies, which has resulted in an amendment to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 under which XL Bullies are now identified as a banned breed and restrictions are placed on owning one.
ANIMALS ACT 1971 RECENT CASE LAW
For those that deal with civil claims involving injury caused by an animal, the key piece of legislation is the Animals Act 1971 (“the Act”), and over the past few years a battleground between the parties has been around section 2(2)(a), which is the first of the three hurdles the claimant has to get over to prove a civil liability against the keeper of the animal, which causes the injury under section 2(2) of the Act.
Section 2(2)(a) requires the claimant to show the damage is of a kind which the animal, unless restrained, was likely to cause or which, if caused by the animal, was likely to be severe.
In Lynch v Ed Walker Racing [2017] a stable boy employed by the defendant was injured when a horse he was riding was spooked, causing it to whip round and fall over. The claim failed because the claimant could not prove section 2(2)(a), and in dismissing the claim, the judge relied on witness evidence heard during evidence that said that people rarely fell off a horse where it whipped and if they did injuries were relatively rare. Based on that the court held that it was unlikely an injury would be caused to a rider by a horse whipping round and if the injury was caused in that manner, it was unlikely to be severe. It should be noted that in this case the claimant failed to provide any expert evidence to prove that injuries can occur and will be severe in those circumstances.
Another battleground under the Act is the defence afforded to defendants under section 5(2). This section provides a full defence where a defendant can show that the person that suffered the damage had voluntarily accepted the risk of it.
In the 2012 cases of Goldsmith v Patchcott and Turnbull v Warrener, experienced horsewomen who were thrown off horses and suffered serious injuries had their claims dismissed, where the defendants could show the experienced horsewomen knew the horse they were riding could react in the way it ultimately did, but both went on to take that risk.