Court Opinion

ID: 9650657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:47:55.452561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:24.934547
License: Public Domain

VINSON, Associate Justice.
A jury in the Municipal Court, after finding appellant’s dog, “Popo”, to have been the perpetrator of a fatal assault upon “Little Bits”, the pet Pomeranian owned by Mrs. Emily W. Erck, and that the appellant had been apprised of Popo’s malevolent propensities, returned a verdict for Mrs. Erck in the sum of $200.00. Since the judgment Mrs. Erck has died, and there has been substituted in her place as appellee William E. Richardson, executor and trustee of her estate. Appellant contends that appellee is not entitled to recover for the loss of Little Bits, relying upon the admitted fact that Little Bits, at the time of its death, was not wearing and never had been provided with a tax tag as prescribed by Title 20, Sections 915 et seq., of the District of Columbia Code (1929).1
The statute, enacted in 1878, provides for the levy qf an annual tax upon “all dogs owned or kept in the District of Columbia”;2 the issuance by the collector of a “tax tag” upon the payment thereof;3 the impoundment and disposal of all dogs found running at large without the tax tag;4 the civil liability of the owner of a “recorded” dog for any damage done by the same;5 the adornment of all dogs with a certain collar containing the said tag and prescribing penalties for the failure thereof ;6 and certain penalties for the removal or molestation of these collars or tax tags.7 In addition, Section 918 declares :
“Any dog wearing the tax tag * * * shall be permitted to run at large within the District of Columbia, and any dog wearing the tax tag * * * shall be regarded as personal property in all the courts of said District, and any person injuring or destroying the same shall be liable to a civil action for damages * *
It is an established principle of the common law that a dog is personal property and that its owner may recover for a willful or negligent injury thereto,8 and it has been deemed immaterial whether the injured dog had been licensed or taxed as prescribed by law.9 It is in the discretion of the legislature, however, to delimit these property rights in a dog,10 and appellant asks us to consider that Section 918 effects a deprivation of these rights to the extent that Little Bits cannot be regarded as personal property, and that no action can be predicated upon its destruction. Appellant contends that Congress in declaring that all dogs wearing the tax tag shall be regarded as personal property and that any person injuring the same shall be liable in a civil action for damages, by necessary implication, has changed the common law rule to the extent that any dog not wearing the tax tag is not personal property and that anyone injuring the same is not liable in damages.
The suggested construction would change the common law rule. No explicit provision for such a change is contained in the Act. The courts have consistently held legislation derogative of the common law accountable to an exactness of expression, and have not allowed the effects of such legislation to be extended beyond the necessary and unavoidable meaning of its terms. The presumption runs against such innovation. This is merely a familiar principle of statutory construction. We are mindful, however, of the caution with which this principle is applied whenever there is a suggestion that an adherence to the letter of the statute would defy an obvious legislative purpose or “lessen the scope plainly intended to be given to the measure.”11 Not only must we weigh *342the force and finality of the words employed in Section 918, but its effect should not be judicially determined apart from its context. It should be considered in association with other related declarations in the Act with a view to the legislative aims and purposes therein and the legislative history of the general subject matter. Guided by these directives, we find the Act to contain several positive indications inconsistent with appellant’s construction.
In 1887, this court, in Murphy v. Preston,12 construed Section 919. This Section reads:
“Any person owning any dog so recorded in the collector’s office shall be liable in a civil action for any damage done by said dog to the full amount of the injury inflicted.”
The plaintiff, there, argued that the Section dispensed with the' common law requirement of scienter to establish the liability of an owner for the damage done by his dog. The court acknowledged that a strict interpretation of that Section supported the plaintiff’s contention; but ruled that the common law necessity of proving scienter had not been modified, holding the provisions of the statute to be in derogation of the common law and thus subject to a strict construction.
After a “careful examination and comparison” of the previously existing regulations concerning dogs, this court stated it was satisfied that Congress had not designed the Act of 1878 to introduce any new principles of law:
“* =:= * the act announces no new principle of law on the subject. The provision that dogs shall be considered, in such wise, personal property, that the owruer may have an action against those injuring them, had already been recognized as the law by our courts. Meig’s Case, 1 MacArthur, 53 [8 D.C. 53, 29 Am.Rep. 578]. Hence, section 4 of the act [§ 918] which declares that a person injuring on destroying a dog wearing a tag shall be liable in a civil action for damages to the owner of the animal, is only declaratory of the existing law, and must be construed according to common lam principles.
“* * * So, the provision in section 5 [§ 919], that the owner should be liable in damages for injuries caused by his dog, was already well recognized as the law. * * *”13 [Italics supplied.]
 When a statute, such as this, is of some sixty years’ vintage, a contemporaneous construction and analysis of this sort is of particular persuasiveness on the question of legislative intent. It may be considered that Congress attached implied approbation to this construction when, in 1902, it made an addition to Section 918,14 and left that Section unaffected in all material respects.15 On the basis of the observations in the Murphy case, therefore, as well as the treatment of analogous statutes in other jurisdictions, we believe that the above admonition apropos of interpretative liberality in deference to obvious legislative intent does not pertain to the present legislation, and that the general rule of strict construction prevails. ,
 It is an established rule of the common law that an owner may be liable in a civil action for the damage caused by his dog. Section 919 imposes this liability upon the owner of the “recorded” dog. Consistency would compel the appellant to argue that Congress, in declaring therein that the owner of a recorded dog should be liable in a civil action for damages caused by the same, by necessary implication, has changed the common law rule to the extent that any owner of a dog not recorded should not be so liable. The parallel of this reasoning with the reasoning advanced in support of the appellant’s contention in respect of Section 918 is perfect. A comparison of these two sections is, therefore, especially indicative of the conclusion that appellant’s contention cannot stand. These two sections are consecutive parts of the same Act, passed on the same day, worded with similar references to preceding sections, possessed of parallel phraseology, and obviously intended (as is the whole of the Act) to be read together. The similar structure and terminology must be given the same effect in the one as in the other. If this court should follow appellant’s contention as to Section 918, it would experience difficulty in attaching a different in*343terpretation to Section 919, should, the occasion arise. The discriminatory effects implicit in the latter instance need no extended delineation. If the roles of the principals in this tragedy had been reversed, with Little Bits the villain and Popo the victim, the appellant might very well have considered that the appellee had not exempted himself from civil liability by failing to provide Little Bits with a tax tag.
In addition, there are other evidences in the Act that make it plain that an unlicensed dog was not intended to lose its status as personal property. Section 917 provides that when an unlicensed dog is impounded, it may be redeemed by “the owners thereof” upon the payment of two dollars. While this two dollars is the monetary equivalent of the tax levy, the provision does not, in terms, or by any manner of implication, make the forfeiture thereof the payment of the tax, but rather a penalty and the price of redemption (the pound-master not being entitled to instant re-seizure as the dog would no longer be at large). More important, however, the use of the word “owners” and the provided ppwer of redemption are too opposed to the concept of a complete absence of property rights to give the statute the force that appellant contends. The etymological association and the legal interdependence of the words “owners” and “property” make the conclusion inescapable that all property rights in an untagged dog were not intended to be and were not removed.
If the other construction be adopted, appellee has urged that foreign dogs, temporarily in the District, being necessarily without a license, would be subject to abuse and their owners entitled to no redress in our courts. Appellee does not go far enough, for under the appropriate conflicts rule, there being no tort where the injury occurred, the aggrieved owner would be unable to seek redress in any court.
There is still a further indication in the Act that the owners of untagged dogs were intended to have property rights therein. In Section 921, it is provided that any person who shall seize or molest “any dog” while held or led by any person, or who shall bring “any dog” into the District to kill it, shall forfeit up to $20.00.
We have been unable to discover anything in the examination of this Act or in the legislative history of the subject matter thereof to indicate that Congress intended to affect the status of a dog in the respect contended.
The judicial treatment of similar statutes in other jurisdictions supports this position. In Alabama Great Southern R. Co. v. Wedgworth,16 the court held that an Alabama statute17 requiring a registration fee and identification tag, and declaring dogs so provided to be “property”, did not deprive the plaintiff of a right to civil damages for a negligent injury to his unlicensed and untagged dog, and disavowed any construction of the statute which destroyed valuable pre-existing rights. In Chapman v. Decrow,18 it was held that a Maine statute19 requiring the registration and licensing of dogs and creating a civil liability for the killing of a dog so provided did not prevent the plaintiff’s recovery for the destruction of his unlicensed and untagged dog. The construction of these statutes is especially significant in view of the fact that both contained a provision (absent in our own) making it the duty of certain officials to kill any dog found running at large without these licenses and tags. In State v. Fenske,20 the court held that a Kansas statute21 providing for a certain levy upon dogs and declaring that a dog which had been accordingly listed and valued should be considered personal property did not imply that failure to comply with its provisions destroyed a dog’s classification as personal property for the purposes of larceny.
We have considered several cases where a construction in accordance with the appellant’s argument has been applied, but in each instance the applicable legislation made plainly explicit that which appellant urges is necessarily implicit in our statute. Invariably these statutes contained positive provisions that no dog was to be entitled to the protection of the law unless placed upon the assessment rolls22 or else *344declared that it was lawful for any person to kin any dog not so provided either when found running at large 23 or whenever and wherever found.24
In the course of our inquiry into the merits of appellant’s arguments, we have been measurably impressed by the consistency with which the courts have applied the strictest of constructions to any statute which seemingly modified the common law rule in respect of the property rights in a dog. In jurisdictions where the legislatures have provided that anyone could kill or cause to be killed an unlicensed or unregistered dog, the courts have held that these statutes did not extend to the situation in which the unlicensed dog was killed by another dog;25 in which an unlicensed dog was negligently run over upon the public highway;26 and in which the unlicensed dog was killed by someone other than those who the statute declared might kill the same.27
Apart from any aversion to the inhumane implications of the appellant’s proposal, we are unable to find anything in the Act of 1878, the interpretation of similar state statutes, or the general judicial treatment of the subject matter which lends support thereto.
We have carefully examined the other alleged errors, and, in our view, they are not sufficient to authorize reversal.
The judgment is
Affirmed.

 Act of June 19, 1878, 20 Stat. 173, c. 323, as amended by the Act of June 30, 1902, 32 Stat. 547, c. 1332, and the Act of June 6, 1930, 46 Stat. 522, c. 411, § 1.

 D.C.Code (1929) Tit. 20, § 915.

 Id. at § 916.

 Id. at § 917.

 Id. at § 919.

 Id. at § 920.

 Id. at § 921.

 Sentell v. New Orleans & Carrollton R. R., 166 U.S. 698, 17 S.Ct. 693, 41 L.Ed. 1169; Mayor, etc., of City of Washington v. Meigs, 1 MacArthur 53, 8 D.C. 53, 29 Am.Rep. 578.

 Roos v. Loeser, 41 Cal.App. 782, 183 P. 204; Lacker v. Strauss, 226 Mass. 579, 116 N.E. 236, L.R.A.1917F, 434.

 Sentell v. New Orleans & Carrollton R. R., 166 U.S. 698,17 S.Ct. 693, 41 L.Ed. 1169; Nicchia v. New York, 254 U.S. 228, 41 S.Ct. 103, 65 L.Ed. 235, 13 A.L.R. 826; Dickerman v. Consolidated R. Co., 79 Conn. 427, 65 A. 289, 8 Ann.Cas. 417.

 Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U.S. 635, 640, 50 S.Ct. 440, 442, 74 L.Ed. 1082.

 5 Mackey 514, 16 D.C. 514.

 Id., 5 Mackey at pages 519, 520, 16 D.C. at pages 519, 520. This opinion received a new affirmance in Bardwell v. Petty, 52 App.D.C. 310, 286 F. 772.

 Act of June 30, 1902, 32 Stat. 547, c. 1332.

 Bardwell v. Petty, 52 App.D.C. 310, 286 F. 772.

 208 Ala. 514, 94 So. 549.

 Gen.Acts (Ala.) 1919, p. 1077.

 93 Me. 378, 45 A. 295, 74 Am.St.Rep. 357.

 Public Laws of 1893 (Me.), c. 287.

 144 Kan. 560, 61 P.2d 1368.

 R.S. (Kan.) 79-1301 (1923).

 Sentell v. New Orleans & Carrollton R. R., 166 U.S. 698, 17 S.Ct. 693, 41 L.Ed. 1169 (“ * * * no dog shall be entitled to the protection of the law unless the same shall have been placed upon the as*344sessment rolls.”); Duval v. Harvey, 148 La. 739, 87 So. 730.

 Brown v. Graham, 80 Neb. 281, 114 N.W. 153 (“ * * * it shaE be lawful for any person to kiE any dog running at large on whose neck there is no such collar.”); Jenkins v. Ballantyne, 8 Utah 245, 30 P. 760, 16 L.R.A. 689 (“ * * * aE dogs found running at large * * * not so registered and coEared, shaE be Hable to be kiBed by any person.”).

 McDerment v. Taft, 83 Vt. 249, 75 A. 276, 138 Am.St.Rep. 1083 (aEowing any person to kiE dogs that are unEcensed and uncoBared as provided by law).
The case of Dickerman v. Consolidated Ry. Co., 79 Conn. 427, 65 A. 289, 290, 8 Ann.Cas. 417, has been offered as an exception to this proposition. The Connecticut law required dogs over six months to be registered, Ecensed, and coEared, and provided a civil and criminal Eability for injuring or kiEing a dog so equipped. The court held that there could be no recovery for the' negEgent kiEing of an unregistered dog. The opinion contained a history of the State’s dog legislation, observing that continuously up until the passage of the Act involved, it had been provided that anyone could kiE an unregistered dog, and that this provision had now been amended so as to aEow only certain officials to kill the same. Construing its own legislation, however, the-court said that this amendment was for-the preservation of peace and order, and “not for the purpose of giving to the-keepers of unregistered dogs the right to-recover their value if unintentionally killed by another person than a constable or a policeman.” Under this construction of the amendment, it cannot be said that the force of the pre-existing law as regards the complete absence of a property right in an unregistered dog had been, affected, and the Diekerman ease cannot be said to be inconsistent with the other cases cited in this regard.

 Baer v. Tyler, 261 Mass. 138, 158 N.E. 536; Heisrodt v. Hackett, 34 Mich. 283, 22 Am.Rep. 529.

 Lacker v. Strauss, 226 Mass. 579, 116 N.E. 236, L.R.A.1917F, 434.

 Chapman v. Decrow, 93 Me. 378, 45 A. 295, 74 Am.Rep. 357.