Court Opinion

ID: 9695690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:27:39.512777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:15.761102
License: Public Domain

BROWN, C.J.
¶ 29. (concurring). I join in the thoughtful and well considered majority opinion. It pulls together the arguably incongruous holdings in Janssen v. Voss, 189 Wis. 222, 207 N.W. 279 (1926); Koetting v. Conroy, 223 Wis. 550, 270 N.W. 625 (1936); and Armstrong v. Milwaukee Mutual Insurance Co., 202 Wis. 2d 258, 549 N.W.2d 723 (1996), and shows how the cases are, at the end of the day, logically consistent after all. Far from "ignoring" the holding in Janssen, as the dissent contends, the majority opinion collates these opinions, and by so organizing and discussing, properly informs us.
¶ 30. I write just to touch, for a moment, on the public policy behind the dog bite statute. As I see it, the purpose of the statute is to protect from harm the surrounding neighbors, passers-by and those who come in proximity to a dog. If a neighbor agrees to keep and shelter a dog in the home, it means the dog is living in that home just as much as would be the case if the homeowner was the legal owner of the dog. Unless and until the homeowner's status as keeper is intentionally terminated in time and space by the dog's removal from the home, that homeowner is strictly liable for any dog-bite injury to his or her neighbors, passers-by and others in proximity. I do not believe the legislature meant to allow the keeper of the dog to avoid strict liability to his or her neighbors, passers-by or others in *816proximity by pointing a finger at someone else and arguing that at that certain moment in time, even though the dog was still within the perimeter of the homeowner's property, he or she had temporarily stopped being the keeper. To allow such a result would be to drown the statute in a sea of minutiae.