Who’s Responsible When Wild Animals Attack?
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
To say that our state gets its fair share of wild animal attacks is something of an understatement: Florida is one of the few places in the world where the distinction between alligators and crocodiles matters because their ranges overlap along the southern end of the peninsula. Not a year goes by without at least one confirmed alligator bite, and in some years there are more than a dozen. But assuming you aren’t out camping in the middle of the Everglades when an alligator strikes, who bears responsibility for your injury?Question 1: Does The Alligator Have An Owner?
If the answer is “yes,” then chances are the owner is liable even if he or she isn’t directly responsible or negligent for allowing the attack to happen.
Civil law makes a distinction between tame animals and wild animals, with tame animals being mostly safe to be around and wild animals being mostly dangerous. To own a wild animal requires extensive training and safety precautions, but it doesn’t matter how extensive these precautions are if the animal gets free. Unless the animal is freed through completely unforeseeable circumstances or else someone gets into the animal’s enclosure by disregarding all warnings and fences, the owner will be on the hook for all damages and harm caused by the animal.
Question 2: Who Owns The Land?
If a wild animal has no owner, then responsibility for such an animal’s actions lies with the person or organization which owns the land and the purpose the land is put to. If the land is a completely wild park or nature preserve, then the rangers may put up signs near especially dangerous areas but otherwise hikers and campers are expected to know the risks and be responsible for their own safety.
Campsites will add extra signs and put up fences around garbage bins to keep bears and raccoons from raiding the camp at night, but the camp isn’t liable if a camper leaves food out at night and invites a black bear to come and visit.
On the other hand, cultivated and urban real estate owners have a responsibility to keep wild animals away as much as possible. While it’s no one’s fault if an alligator or a deer accidentally stumbles into a city street, the local animal control experts are expected to respond to such a call as promptly as possible, to warn people away from the potentially dangerous animal, and to carefully and safely remove it from the urban area. If someone is hurt while animal control is present, they and their employers may be liable for damages.
If there’s a known wild animal presence near a human-occupied area, such as a pond where alligators frequently gather or a watering hole frequented by bears and deer, then the landowners are responsible for taking extraordinary measures such as electrified fences and clear warning signs to keep the humans and animals separated. The property owner may not own the animals, but since the danger is both clear and consistent he or she must take similar measures to keep his or her guests safe.
Florida already has strict liability laws regarding dog bites regardless of how violent the dog was in the past, and as such wild animal owners have no real recourse when their animals attack a human. In such cases and in cases when a landowner knows about a wild animal presence it’s possible to find a case “responsible without fault,” which means that even with precautions in place and no possible control over the animal, the animal or landowner can still be made to pay damages to the injured party.