Besozzi v Harris
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1858 |
| Date | 01 January 1858 |
| Court | High Court |
English Reports Citation: 175 E.R. 640
QUEEN'S BENCH, COMMON PLEAS AND EXCHEQUER
besozzi v. harris. (A person keeping an animal of a fierce nature, is bound so to keep it that it shall not commit injury ; when therefore such an animal does damage, the owner is liable, though it be shown that it had never evinced any fierceness, but evidence of its tameness received, under particular circumstances, in reduction of damages.) Case, for carelessly keeping a bear, whereby it bit the plaintiff. Plea : not guilty ; and a special plea, not proved The defendant was the owner of a bear, which he kept fastened by a chain, six feet long, on a part of his premises accessible to persons frequenting his house on the Steep Holms, in the Bristol Channel. [93] The plaintiff, who was one of an excursion party visiting the defendant's 1 T. & F. 94. MILLER V. FRICKER 641 house, walking past the bear's house was seized by the bear and seriously injured. The evidence was contradictory as to her knowledge of the bear being there. There was no notice or caution, written or verbal, to those visiting the premises. The bear was shown, before the time in question, to have been always tame and docile in its ha-bita Thii latter evidence was objected to by the plaintifi, but was admitted in reduction of damages, the case having been opened as one of great aggravation on the part of the defendant. Ciowder, J. (to the jury) -The statement in the declaration, that the defendant knew the bear to be...
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Read v J. Lyons & Company Ltd
...the bite of a defendant's monkey, May v. Burdett (1846) 9 Q.B.101; see also the case of a bear on a chain on the defendant's premises, Besozzi v. Harris (1858) 1 F. and F.92. There are instances, no doubt, in our law in which liability for damage may be established apart from proof of negli......
- Norah Read v J. Lyons & Company, Ltd