Landlord Liability for Tenant's Animals

April 20, 2008 | Roger McEowen

Normally a landlord is not liable for injuries that a tenant’s animals cause.  But, a “possessor” of an animal can, in certain circumstances, be held liable for injuries that animals cause.  This case illustrates that latter point.

Here an individual was given a dog by his girlfriend.  He later moved into an apartment that his father owned.  The dog, on one occasion broke loose from his chain in the apartment’s front yard and bit a neighbor.  After that incident, the dog owner built a fence around the backyard of the apartment.  While the father asked that the dog be given away, the son refused.  Later the son landed in jail (for events not related to the dog) and the father evicted the son’s girlfriend that was also living in the apartment with the son.  The dog remained in the fenced-in backyard.  The son’s girlfriend occasionally would come by and toss food over the fence for the dog, as did the father.  Sometime later, the neighbor’s brother moved in to the apartment and began caring for the dog.  While he was feeding the dog one day, the dog escaped the enclosure and bit the neighbor’s son – severely injuring him.  The neighbor sued the dog’s owner and his father for damages under theories of strict liability, landowner liability and negligence.  The trial court directed a verdict for the father on all three claims, but the jury found the son liable for $240,000 in damages.  The issue on appeal was whether the trial court erred in directing a verdict for the father on all three claims.

Iowa law provides that a dog’s owner is strictly liable for injuries the dog causes (IA Code §351.28).  The only exceptions are when the injured party is acting unlawfully which directly contributes to the injury or if the dog has rabies.  The appellate court noted that the term “owner” has been narrowly construed and, as such, the father could not be held strictly liable for the injuries insomuch as he was not the owner of the dog.  As to the landowner liability claim, however, the court noted that the father could be held liable as a “keeper” of a dog with known vicious tendencies.  As such, the court reasoned that the plaintiff had generated a question of fact for the jury as to the father was the dog’s “keeper” or “possessor” after the son went to jail and the girlfriend was evicted.  So, that claim should have gone to the jury.  On the negligence claim, the court held that the plaintiffs had raised a fact question as to whether the father allowed a dangerous dog to remain on his property and whether the father failed to warn the neighbor’s brother of the dog’s dangerous nature.  So, the issue of negligence should have also gone to the jury.  Crabtree v. Johnson, No. 8-080/07-0929 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 30, 2008).