Canada Goose
LANSING, Mich. - Property owners in Michigan now may be liable for attacks by wild animals on their land, after an appeals court allowed a worker to sue a hospital over an attack by a vicious goose in the parking lot.
Rejecting the principle of ferae naturae, which generally prohibits lawsuits over the actions of wild animals, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled plaintiff Eric Leiendecker can sue Ascension Genesis Hospital for basic premises liability.
Leiendecker was leaving work as a contractor at Ascension when the goose attacked him and knocked him to the ground, where he suffered a broken pelvis. The security officer who escorted him to the emergency department said the goose had been there several days and was a danger to people in the area. An Ascension employee also allegedly told the plaintiff she’d been attacked by the goose a week earlier and had reported it to the hospital.
Leiendecker sued the security company and Ascension for negligence and premises liability, but a trial judge dismissed the case, saying neither had control over the goose. The appeals court upheld the dismissal of the case against the security company but allowed Leiendecker to proceed against Ascension, saying the hospital might be liable for a danger on its premises.
A Michigan court previously rejected a woman’s lawsuit over fungal infection she blamed on pigeons she said came to her property after the city sprayed the roofs of its own buildings to drive them away. But in another case, a property owner was able to sue the neighbor for nuisance after using bait to to attract geese to his pond.
And in yet another case, a plaintiff was allowed to sue after a dog penned in the neighbor’s yard bit their hand as they reached over the top of the fence.
“While geese can fly and dogs cannot, the permanence, or lack thereof, of a dangerous condition does not determine liability of the property owner,” wrote Judge Adrienne N. Young in a brief Jan. 13 opinion for a three-judge panel.
“Plaintiff states a cognizable premises liability claim if plaintiff pleaded the goose is a dangerous condition of the land about which the landowner knew or should have known.”
