Opinion ID: 1670605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Retention and Application of the Principle

Text: There is no better reason in principle or policy than in history to expand responsibility for animals into a rule of superstrict liability. This court rendered in Loescher what it plainly considered to be a fundamental judgment using civilian and comparatist methodology to combine diverse conceptions into a coherent principle giving strict liability manageable scope and harmonizing its several categories. The principle is that the guardian of the person or thing should bear the cost of damage caused through unreasonable risks of harm that his charge creates. There are various policies supporting the unreasonable risk principle: As Loescher observes, the person who has the guardianship and usually the enjoyment of the person or thing should bear the cost of damage caused by risks they create rather than the innocent victim. Further, it is thought that the guardian is in a better position to anticipate, detect, guard against, and insure against these risks, making him a better risk spreader and more efficient conductor of the deterrent effects of civil liability. A competing policy, however, is that the guardian should not be responsible for protecting against all risks; some risks are relatively too small to require him to protect others therefrom. Thus, if the unreasonable risk of harm principle were to be abolished in the cases involving liability for animals, these policies would tend to be defeated or at least not promoted and owners would be made insurers against loss from any risk, no matter how insignificant or socially tolerable the risk might be. We see no reason that animal owners should be treated less favorably than owners of buildings and guardians of inanimate things under strict liability conceptions of the Civil Code. Moreover, it would appear that doing so might undermine the principle's application to strict liability under other delictual articles of the Code. Consequently, we conclude that the unreasonable risk of harm principle should be maintained in animal cases in the interest of the continued manageable and harmonious application of strict liability under the Civil Code. This court has explained that the judicial process involved in deciding whether a thing under garde posed an unreasonable risk of harm is similar to that of taking into account all of the social, moral, economic and other considerations as would a legislator regulating the matter. Entrevia v. Hood, 427 So.2d 1146 (La.1983). See also Pitre v. Opelousas General Hospital, 530 So.2d 1151 (La. 1988); Bell v. Jet Wheel Blast, 462 So.2d 166 (La. 1985); Langlois v. Allied Chemical Corp., 258 La. 1067, 249 So.2d 133 (1971); B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 105 (1921); Geny, Method of Interpretation and Sources of Private Positive Law § 174 (LSLI translation 2d ed. 1963). We have also noted that the unreasonable risk of harm concept is virtually identical with the risk-utility balancing test that is part (but not all) of both negligence and strict products liability theories in Anglo-American law. Bell, supra; Entrevia, supra. See also L. Hand, J. in United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169, 173 (2d Cir. 1947) and Conway v. O'Brien, 111 F.2d 611, 612 (2d Cir.1940); Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 291-293, 402A; Harper, James and Gray, The Law of Torts § 16.9 (1986); Prosser and Keeton On Torts § 31 (5th ed. 1984); R. Posner, A Theory of Negligence, 1 J. Legal Stud. 29 (1972). It is interesting and instructive that Justice Tate, the author of this court's opinions in Loescher and Holland, in an opinion he wrote as a judge of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, confirmed that the legislative fact consideration and risk-utility balancing tests are valid approaches to determining whether a person or thing under garde posed an unreasonable risk of harm to others. See Matthews v. Ashland Chemical, Inc., 703 F.2d 921 (5th Cir. 1983). Applying these precepts to the present case, we conclude that the risk created by the defendant's cat, Magique, that resulted in the plaintiff's injuries was not an unreasonable risk of harm. We do not believe that a legislator or other objective policymaker regulating this case, after weighing all social, economic, moral and other considerations, would decide that the behavior of the cat in either rubbing the legs of a visitor in its home or accidentally getting in the way or underfoot is an unreasonable risk of harm. Magique's behavior was innocuous, especially when compared with other cat-created risks widely tolerated by our society. (For an illustration of these other risks in verse, see T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.) Further, it does not appear that the likelihood of injury resulting from such catlike behavior multiplied by the gravity of the harm threatened by it would outweigh the utility of keeping a cat as a pet in a home where she may be displayed and exposed to visiting relatives and guests. Although a detailed discussion of the content and application of the unreasonable risk concept is not necessary in the present case, as the behavior of this particular cat clearly did not present an unreasonable risk of harm, more thorough analyses and applications can be found in previous cases. E.g., Entrevia, supra; Matthews, supra; Levi v. SLEMCO, 542 So.2d 1081 (La. 1989); Pitre v. Opelousas General Hospital, 530 So.2d 1151 (La.1988); Allien v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 202 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1967). As a result of our construction of article 2321 and the foregoing conclusions with respect to the behavior of this particular animal, the judgment of the Court of Appeal finding that the animal in this case posed no unreasonable risk of harm leading to the plaintiff's injury and reversing the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. In addition, we do not find, from a thorough reading of the record, any evidence that plaintiff's daughter was guilty of any negligence that caused her mother's injuries. Accordingly, we conclude that plaintiff's contentions based upon Civil Code articles 2315 and 2316 are also without merit. For the reasons assigned the judgment of the Court of Appeal reversing the judgment below and rejecting plaintiff's claims is affirmed. AFFIRMED.