Civil liability for animals

Abstract

The subject of civil liability for animals has long been known to the law becasue of the historical fact that animals in olden days represented man's main if not sole wealth and also probably because, as Savatier puts it, "les animaux ont une intitiative et une energie propre". Through the ages the subject acquired a certain complexity particularly as the basic idea took on new connotations influenced and coloured by man's changing attitudes to the concept of responsibility. In Roman law the subject is bound up principally with the actio de pauperie, which was derived from the Twelve Tables and, being noxal, imposed on the owner of the animal nocens the obligation of surrendering the animal to the person who suffered the damages or of paying the whole amount of such damages. Pauperies means damage done "sine iniuria facientis", that is to say, without legal wrong on the part of the door, as is precisely the case with animals which, not being endowed with reason, cannot obviously commit a legal wrong.