Banks v. Maxwell

BeogdbN, J.

What are the essentials of liability for injury inflicted by a bull?

The ancestry and social standing of a bull antedates the pyramids of Egypt. Indeed, the written record reveals that in the first civilization *235 along tbe stretches of tbe Nile a bull was a god. He was an emblem and symbol of AÚtality and ancient Egyptians worshipped vitality. Tbe same impulse therefore that constructed the pyramids also endowed the hull with divinity.

It is true that his fighting qualities have often been used for describing fear. For instance, the Sweet Singer of Israel, attempting to describe his sense of fear and depression, wrote: “Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and roaring lion.” Psalms 22 .T2-13.

The familiar rule of liability for injuries inflicted by cattle has remained approximately constant for more than three thousand years. This rule of liability was expressed by Moses in the following words: “If an ox gore a man or a woman that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned and his flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox'shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.” Ex. 21:28-30.

This Court declared in Rector v. Coal Co., 192 N. C., 804 , 136 S. E., 113 , that a person injured by a domestic animal, in order to recover damages, must show two essential facts: (1) “The animal inflicting the injury must be dangerous, vicious, mischievous or ferocious, or one. termed in the law as possessing a vicious propensity.” (2) “The owner must have actual or constructive knowledge of the vicious propensity, character and habits of the animal.” The same principle was announced in Cockerham v. Nixon, 33 N. C., 269 , this ease involved an injury committed by a bull."

In the case at bar there was no evidence offered tending to show that the bull had ever attacked a person or -threatened to do so, nor that he was “wont to push with his horn in time past”; nor was there evidence that the owner had actual or constructive knowledge of any vicious propensity of the animal. It is true that a -witness said that each morning when the bull was turned out of the pen “he would bellow, paw the ground, and burrow in the ground with his head.” Those bred to the soil perhaps know that such acts on the part of a normal bull constituted per se no more than boastful publicity or propaganda, doubtless designed by the animal to inform his bovine friends and admirers that he was arriving upon the scene.

At any rate the trial judge correctly interpreted the prevailing principle of law as held and promulgated in this State.

Affirmed.