Court Opinion

ID: 9669450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:56:30.451096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:56.636069
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
(dissenting). A person who chooses to keep and maintain an otherwise wild animal in captivity on their property should be held to the duty of keeping and maintaining that animal under such reasonable conditions so as to avoid injuries to people coming onto the property. The majority relieves the property owner from such duty for no sound public policy reason and does so only by reading into the statute words that do not appear. I dissent.
The purpose of the legislature in creating this recreational immunity statute was to encourage landowners to open up their lands for recreational use by the public. See 1983 Wis. Act 418, sec. 1. The legislature realized that landowners would be reluctant to open up their lands for the enjoyment of others if they were potentially liable for random attacks by wild animals over which they had no control. The legislative intent of sec. 895.52(2)(b), Stats., is not furthered by interpreting the term "wild animal" to include animals held in captivity. There are no words in this statute, and there is no evidence in the legislative history of this statute, to support the notion that the legislature intended to provide that property owners who keep in captivity and maintain control over otherwise wild animals on their land do not have a duty of reasonable care in keeping and maintaining those animals. Nevertheless, that is how the majority interprets this statute. It is an interpretation that has no consistency with the general purpose of the statute. The *451legislature could not have intended such an inconsistent, absurd, and unjust result.
I have no quarrel with the majority's conclusion that the injured person does not have to be engaged in "recreational activity" in order for a property owner to be immune from liability for injury caused by a wild animal. And I certainly do not have any quarrel with the majority's most unstartling conclusion that generally a buck deer is a wild animal. But, the single most important fact in this case is that the buck was held in captivity by the defendant; i.e., the property owner kept and maintained control over the animal. For purposes of this statute the buck deer ceases to be a wild animal when it is held in captivity by the landowner. The majority shields the property owner from a duty of reasonable care by reading the words "in captivity" into the immunity statute, words that neither appear in the statute nor have any relevancy to the purposes of the statute. Given the purpose of the statute, a captive animal should not be considered "wild" simply because other members of its species run free and are perceived as being unpredictable at times, i.e., during the rutting season.
It is absurd to conclude that the legislature intended to shield a negligent property owner from liability for injuries sustained from an otherwise wild animal that the property owner kept in captivity and maintained. Many people keep and maintain animals that generally are of an untamable and wild disposition and do so for many reasons. Animal farms are numerous across Wisconsin. For whatever reason, some people keep otherwise wild animals (snakes, minks, ferrets, squirrels, fox, etc.) in their homes or in pens on their property. What possible public policy reason could the legislature have to give these people immunity from liability for injuries caused by their negligent actions in keeping and maintaining *452these animals? How does the majority's interpretation farther the legislature's purpose of encouraging landowners to open their land to the public? In the absence of clear legislative language to the contrary, I cannot understand why the majority chooses to relieve from a duty of reasonable care property owners who choose to keep in captivity and maintain these animals.
A far more reasonable interpretation of the statute is available, one that is consistent with the legislative intent and avoids this absurd and unjust result. I interpret the statute as simply providing that property owners who assert no control over the wild animal have no liability for an attack by a wild animal. In other words the term "wild animals" means those animals of an untamable disposition that exist in a state of nature, not held in captivity and not under the control of a landowner. Where there is no control there is no duty. I dissent.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICE Shirley S. Abrahamson joins in this dissent.