Case Name: Henrietta Gardner, Respondent, v. H. C. Bohack Company, Inc., Appellant
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1917-07-31
Citations: 179 A.D. 242
Docket Number: 
Parties: Henrietta Gardner, Respondent, v. H. C. Bohack Company, Inc., Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 179
Pages: 242–244

Head Matter:
Henrietta Gardner, Respondent, v. H. C. Bohack Company, Inc., Appellant.
Second Department,
July 31, 1917.
Animals — personal injury caused by a cat while attempting to attack plaintiff’s dog — evidence justifying recovery.
Action for personal injuries. It appeared that the defendant knew that customers came to his market accompanied by their dogs, and that a cat owned by him was accustomed to attack the dogs of customers, and that on a previous occasion had torn the dress of a customer while attempting to attack her dog which she was carrying. Subsequently the eat, in its attempt to reach the plaintiff’s dog, injured the plaintiff.
Held, that the jury were justified in finding the defendant negligent, and that a judgment for the plaintiff should be affirmed.
Blackmar, J., and Jenks, P. J., dissented, with opinion.
Appeal by the defendant, H. C. Bohack Company, Inc., from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiff, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 11th day of May, 1916, upon the verdict of a jury for $500, and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the same day denying defendant’s motion for a new trial made upon the minutes.
F. H. J. Maxwell [Alfred E. Holmes with him on the brief], for the appellant.
Frank L. Tyson, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Thomas, J.:
The defendant kept a market to which he invited customers, who, as he knew, came with their dogs. Such was the nabit of the plaintiff. The defendant had a cat with a kL en. The cat, following her propensity, attacked the visiting dogs and pursued them even when they were in the immediate protection of their owners. In the present case the plaintiff, to guard it from the onset of the cat, had taken up her dog and placed it on a stool beside her, so that she intervened between it and the cat, but the cat carried forward its attack on the dog, and in the course of it the plaintiff was hurt. On a previous occasion a woman had taken up her dog, and yet the cat attempted to reach it and tore the woman's dress," In neither case was the propensity of the cat directed against the woman, but she was involved in the attack on the. dog. The jury was justified, in view of the previous incident, in finding that the defendant was negligent in exposing the person of his customer to the frenzy of the cat, although the dog alone animated it.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
Stapleton and Rich, JJ., concurred; Blackmar, J., read for reversal, with whom Jenks, P. J., concurred.