//
[2017] ACTSC 100
General information, not legal advice.
Supreme Court of the ACT
2017-05-05
Penfold J
Original judgment source is linked above.
SUPREME COURT OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Hartigan v Commissioner for Social Housing in the ACT
TORTS - NEGLIGENCE - General Principles - Duty of care - dangerous premises - Pitbull Terriers kept in public housing - whether tenant needed permission from Commissioner to keep dangerous dog in public housing - conventional occupier's liability - whether dog formed part of the state of the premises - whether Commissioner owed duty of care to visitors to public housing - Commissioner's capacity to control risk posed by presence of dangerous dogs in its leased premises - no duty on Commissioner to regulate keeping of dangerous dogs in public housing - keeping of dangerous dogs in general regulated by another authority - whether Commissioner liable as keeper of dogs kept in its leased premises.
PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE - Amendment of statement of claim to add new basis of liability - no reasonable cause of action disclosed - leave to amend refused.
ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2008 (ACT), ss 79, 86
Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956 (Cth), sch 1
Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), s 12
Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (ACT), ss 76, 83
Social Security Act 1991 (Cth)
Unit Titles Act 1970 (ACT)
Adeels Palace Pty Ltd v Moubarak [2009] HCA 48; 239 CLR 420
Bryan v Warwick & Anor [2002] WADC 192; 29 SR (WA) 152
Drake v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (No 2) [1979] AATA 179; 2 ALD 634
Harris v Commissioner for Social Housing [2013] ACTSC 186; 8 ACTLR 98
Karatjas v Deakin University [2012] VSCA 53; 35 VR 355
Lucas v Commissioner for Social Housing for the ACT [2011] ACTSC 11
Modbury Triangle v Anzil [2000] HCA 61; 205 CLR 254
Morales v Commissioner for Social Housing [2012] ACTSC 117
New South Wales v Lepore [2003] HCA 4; 212 CLR 511
Proprietors of Strata Plan 17226 v Drakulic [2002] NSWCA 381; 55 NSWLR 659
Smith v Leurs [1945] HCA 27; (1945) 70 CLR 256
Sullivan v Moody [2001] HCA 59; 207 CLR 562
Jack Joseph Hartigan by his litigation guardian Joanna Elizabeth Mangan (Plaintiff)
Commissioner for Social Housing in the Australian Capital Territory (Defendant)
1. The plaintiff, an infant, brings action by his litigation guardian against the ACT Commissioner for Social Housing (the Commissioner), claiming that the Commissioner owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, breached that duty of care, and is accordingly liable to compensate the plaintiff for loss suffered by him as a result of the negligence of the Commissioner.
3. On 7 October 2010, the plaintiff, then aged six years, was taken to a house in Roe Street, Griffith, ACT (the Roe Street premises), which was managed by the Commissioner and occupied by Helen Hines (the tenant) who kept two dogs on the premises. Inside the house, one of the dogs attacked the plaintiff, causing him significant injuries. The dog was later destroyed.
4. It was conceded on behalf of the plaintiff that there was no point in taking action against the tenant because she was unlikely to be able to satisfy any judgment given against her.
5. In evidence and submissions there have been numerous references to Housing ACT. I understand this to be another name for that part of the ACT administration headed by the Commissioner, and use this term where it is used in the evidence - no point has been taken about the different descriptions.
7. The two dogs involved in this case, including the one that was established to have attacked the plaintiff, are variously referred to in evidence and submissions as Pitbulls, Pitbull Terriers, Pit Bull Terriers and American Pitbull Terriers. No point has been taken about these discrepancies, and I have used the description "Pitbull Terriers" throughout, except in quotations from other material. There is also a mention of a "Staffy Cross" in one of the complaint records, but this does not seem to be a reference to the dog responsible for the attack.
8. The plaintiff, Jack Joseph Hartigan (Jack), gave evidence that at the time of the incident he was six years old and was attending a primary school in Tuggeranong.
9. On the day of the incident he travelled to the address in Roe Street, Griffith with a school friend, Zack, and two adults, Mick (Michael Taylor) and Nicki (Nicki Sherring), one of whom had some clothes to deliver to the occupant.
10. When they arrived at the Roe Street address the occupant, Helen, opened the door. Two dogs were standing next to her; they were barking and seemed to be excited. He and the other visitors then waited at the door while Helen put the dogs in the backyard, before she let the visitors into the house.
11. Jack was in the lounge room with the adults when Nicki left the lounge room through a door leading to the kitchen. When she opened the door to the kitchen, Jack said:
the dogs came storming out... one of them ran past me 'cause they missed me, and then the other one grabbed my leg.
12. Jack said that the dog bit his right leg and he fell to the ground:
and then the other dog got my head and it was basically a game of tug-of-war between the dogs. And it really hurt, from all the pain of them stretching me. And then the one on my leg let go and went onto my face.
13. Jack said that the dog then bit the left side of his face, around the area of his mouth and left nostril. The dog made contact with his left eye and knocked out his two front teeth.
14. The two dogs then began tugging at him again, before the adults responded. Jack said:
[Nicki] jumped on me and pulled one dog off for a little bit, until it growled and started barking, and then went for me again. And then Mick got up and then they all just started screaming, running around, and trying to tackle the dogs off. And then when they finally got the dogs off, they put them - they threw them in the backyard.
15. Immediately after the incident, Jack said, Helen had put a towel over his head, and then she and the other adults looked at his injuries. His parents were called and he was taken to hospital.
16. Jack described the injuries he suffered in the attack, which included scarring on his right leg and on his face around his mouth and left nostril. He said that his left eye is now "lazy" due to being struck by one of the dogs during the attack, and that he could not now grow hair on some areas of his scalp.
17. Since the incident, Jack has had to undergo several medical procedures, one of which involved the taking of a graft of skin from his leg to treat one of the wounds on his face, and another of which involved the stretching of skin on his head. He said that he was likely to undergo further procedures to address his injuries.
18. Jack said that after the incident he had not been able to participate in regular activities such as running, riding his bike or using a trampoline, but that this was no longer the case. The injuries to his mouth, which had required him to be fed through a tube for a short time after the incident, still caused him to occasionally bite his skin while attempting to chew.
19. Since the incident Jack has suffered nightmares and a fear of large dogs, and for a period ending a year or two earlier he had experienced bed-wetting. He said that the need to regularly attend hospital during school holidays meant that "I can't have a lot of fun in the holidays, which bums me out".
20. Under cross-examination Jack agreed said that he was currently able to play soccer without any difficulties attributable to the injuries he sustained in the incident, and that he was also able to run and ride his bike.
21. He said that he had seen a counsellor after the incident, but was no longer doing so.
22. Joanne Mangan is the plaintiff's mother and his litigation tutor in relation to these proceedings. On the day of the incident she went straight to the hospital to see Jack as soon as she heard he was injured.
23. That night she had waited for seven hours while her son underwent surgery, and he had then remained in hospital for between six weeks and three months thereafter, during which period he had three operations. Jack had appeared unhappy while he was in hospital, he was fed through a tube for a period, and at one point he was given morphine to treat his pain.
24. Jack had undergone 17 major procedures, in addition to some less-serious procedures which involved the injection of fluid into portholes that were implanted under his skin in an effort to stretch it; those procedures were intended to address his inability to grow hair on certain parts of his scalp.
25. Jack had been born with a "lazy eye", but since the incident both of his eyes were now lazy; Ms Mangan said that "when he's tired they roll and things like that".
26. Jack had lost 13 teeth as a result of the incident, and he had since experienced difficulties with biting the inside of his mouth. He had begun to experience headaches since the incident, and Ms Mangan had not been aware of any such problems before the incident. He had also experienced difficulty walking in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
27. Since the incident Ms Mangan had observed her son experiencing "meltdowns", during which he would become distressed and withdrawn. She had not noticed such episodes before the incident. She said that Jack still experiences bed-wetting, nightmares and difficulty sleeping and that, after the incident, bullying due to his obvious scars had affected his confidence.
28. Ms Mangan gave evidence that some time after the incident the tenant had contacted her to apologise for the incident; the tenant had expressed her fear that she might lose her house as a result.
29. A number of photographs were exhibited showing Jack's injuries immediately after the incident, and at later stages of his treatment, including during the process of injecting fluid into implants placed under his skin in an effort to stretch the skin.
30. Gerald Silvey lived in Roe Street, Griffith, in a property not far from the premises in which the incident occurred. Mr Silvey was called by the plaintiff.
31. Mr Silvey had lived in Roe Street since 1985, and the tenant had lived in the nearby property since 2004 or 2005. The tenant had continuously had dogs, primarily Pitbull Terriers, at her property since moving in.
32. Around 2008, the tenant had erected a sign outside her house saying "Dangerous Dogs".
33. Mr Silvey said that the dogs kept by the tenant had regularly been seen outside her premises, and that they had managed to get out of the yard despite the installation of three different gates at various times. He explained that:
they've gotten out through the back fence, they've gotten out through the side fence, then subsequently through that neighbour's back fence.
34. Mr Silvey said that over a number of years he and his wife had made many complaints in relation to the tenant's dogs. Their complaints had been directed to Housing ACT and to DAS. Housing ACT had always told him to call DAS in relation to the dogs, and had never indicated that they bore any responsibility for animals or for the manner in which their tenants handled animals.
35. In November 2007 Housing ACT had written to Mr Silvey's wife recommending that she maintain a diary of disturbances relating to the tenant, and that she make an official report to police. Mr Silvey said that he and his wife had followed this advice, maintaining a diary of events and then contacting police, although not in relation to the tenant's dogs.
36. Mr Silvey said that dogs belonging to Ms Hines had been impounded a number of times, including on one occasion in April 2008.
37. In April 2008 Mr Silvey's wife had told him that three dogs from the tenant's residence had "bailed" her up and scared her. His wife had called DAS, who had attended the house and taken an affidavit from her. DAS staff had subsequently advised that two of the dogs from the tenant's residence had been taken.
38. Mr Silvey said that on 30 May 2008 his wife had had contact with a staff member from Housing ACT, who had told her that Housing ACT would do nothing about the dogs at the tenant's residence.
39. Mr Silvey was not aware of any action having been taken by Housing ACT to address the various complaints he had made concerning dogs at the tenant's residence.
40. He said that the tenant had continued to keep dogs, which appeared to him to be Pitbull Terriers, on the premises in the years following the incident involving the plaintiff, and that he was aware of an incident in 2013 when the dogs escaped the yard and caused difficulties for a neighbour.
41. Under cross-examination Mr Silvey said that he and his wife generally directed their complaints concerning the tenant's dogs to DAS, as "Housing had told us they didn't want to have anything to do with them".
42. He agreed that he was aware of rangers from DAS attending the property occupied by the tenant on a number of occasions, but he could not recall seeing them inspecting the property.
43. A large number of documents tendered on behalf of the plaintiff were admitted without objection, being:
(a) the tenancy agreement between ACT Housing and Helen Hines;
(b) the Commissioner's Animals and Pets Policy (the Pets Policy);
(c) ACT Housing's Crown lease over the relevant premises;
(d) a report from occupational physician Dr Leon Le Leu concerning the plaintiff's injuries;
(e) a bundle of documents obtained from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) concerning police responses to the incident;
(f) a fact sheet concerning pets and animals that was distributed to ACT Housing tenants;
(g) two documents containing definitions of different kinds of residential premises; and
(h) records of complaints made to ACT Housing and Domestic Animal Services concerning dogs at the Roe Street premises, and correspondence created in response to those complaints.
Evidence of defendant's involvement with tenant's dogs
44. The documentary evidence included a considerable volume of material relating to the behaviour of the tenant's dogs over an extended period, and the responses from Housing ACT and DAS to various complaints and notifications. It is unnecessary to canvass all that evidence in detail, but it is useful to refer at this stage to a sample of that evidence.
45. In February 2005, Housing ACT received a complaint from a neighbour of the Roe Street premises about (among other things) a dog at the premises that was constantly barking. Within the next week, officers of Housing ACT had gone to the premises twice and also contacted the RSPCA. The Housing ACT officer recorded that there were two dogs on the premises (one of which had barked constantly while she was there), and that the adult tenants of the premises had been incarcerated, but that the dogs appeared to be adequately fed and watered and that there was "nothing we can do".
46. After this, Housing ACT or DAS received a further six complaints (at least five of them from Mr or Mrs Silvey) about the dogs from the Roe Street premises roaming the street, and two other complaints about the dogs at the premises. Complaints made to Housing ACT were re-directed to DAS, and DAS made at least five visits to the premises, at least two of which involved fence inspections.
47. There were four complaints about the dogs from the Roe Street premises; two of them were made by the Silveys and reported the dogs roaming the street, the other two reported, respectively, that a dog from the premises had attacked a dog belonging to the complainant and that a dog from the premises had chased the complainant.
48. There was also a request from the dog pound to DAS to inspect the fence at the Roe Street premises in connection with a "Staffy Cross" that was considered to be dangerous. This inspection resulted in a "fail" for the fencing at the premises; among other things, the occupants had apparently been required to extend the height of the fences by "two feet".
49. DAS seized a dog in connection with the attack on a complainant's dog, left a notice at the Roe Street premises requiring a dog to be presented at the dog pound as a result of the complaint of chasing, and also checked the dog run at the premises in connection with a "dangerous dog licence". There was no evidence whether the dog had been presented to the pound as required.
50. Housing ACT contacted the tenant about her dogs roaming the street, and advised her that if the situation was not rectified, she "might be served with a legal notice".
51. During the year, Mrs Silvey complained to Housing ACT, DAS and (jointly with Mr Silvey) to the Minister for Housing. Among other things, she reported in April that the dogs from the Roe Street premises "had her bailed up in the street on the weekend". DAS made an unsuccessful attempt on 15 April to seize one or more dogs from the Roe Street premises, and some weeks later conducted a fence inspection at the premises.
52. In May the tenant advised an ACT Housing officer that her dog was now registered and in an approved dog run.
53. Housing ACT contacted the tenant several times, including by a letter dated 29 May noting the requirements that pets be kept under control, be kept on a leash when outside the premises, and not be allowed to interfere with the quiet enjoyment of the neighbours.
54. The letter from the Silveys to the Minister for Housing (at [51] above) was dated 24 June 2008; it mentioned a variety of complaints against the tenant, but relevantly referred to:
continuing breaches of requirements to keep dogs on leashes in ordinary street environment, exposing persons and other pets to attack from the bull terrier crosses and mastiff.
55. The Minister's reply, dated 22 July 2008, assured the Silveys that Housing ACT took seriously allegations about inappropriate behaviour by public house tenants. It also enclosed a fact sheet about the legislative requirements for owning a dog in the ACT, and action that could be taken if dogs caused a nuisance, and recommended reporting such nuisance to DAS.
56. In July, Housing ACT wrote to the tenant about complaints that did not refer to the tenant's dogs, but alleged that she and her guests:
are continually causing disturbances around [her] neighbourhood [and that she continues] to yell, scream and use fowl [sic?] language to all hours of the day and night.
57. The letter gave the tenant 14 days notice to remedy the breach of her obligation under her tenancy not to cause or permit nuisance, and not to interfere, or permit interference with, the quiet enjoyment of occupiers of nearby premises, and warned that a failure to remedy that breach would result in Housing ACT "commencing legal action through the Residential Tenancies Tribunal to seek a compliance order".
58. In November, DAS received a complaint from Mrs Silvey about a "roaming" dog from the Roe Street premises. DAS officers went to the Roe Street premises but could not see any dog; they warned the tenants at the premises orally about allowing the dog to roam the street, and reminded them that the dog needed to be re-registered.
59. There was one report to Housing ACT about the dogs from the Roe Street premises (received on 29 July). The complaint was recorded as follows:
Dogs are out at night and in the day, dogs did attack another dog and injured it badly police were called. Caller is very concerned about young children walking home from school. She stated it seems to her that someone has to be hurt or killed before anyone will do something about these tenants.
60. Some weeks later Housing ACT officers visited the premises, where the tenant told them that the dogs stayed in the house overnight and in the backyard during the day. The file note made by the Housing ACT officer on 17 August said:
I discussed the issues with the tenant, she advised the dogs stay inside the house over night and remain [in] the back yard through the day. I am satisfied with this due to the care she took with the dogs while at the property and discussions of this matter being bought [sic] up previously.
61. Counsel for the defendant submitted that the officer's mention of the care taken by the tenant indicated that the officer was satisfied that the dogs posed no risk inside the house.
62. DAS received a complaint on 17 May that two Pitbulls from the Roe Street premises were "jumping over fences into the backyard of residences and harassing people", and that there were holes in the dogs' yard. DAS officers went to the premises promptly and observed the dogs to be "extremely aggressive" and to be jumping in and out of four different yards. Police were called, and with their help one dog was caught and impounded, but the other dog could not be caught.
63. DAS officers returned to the premises the next day, and impounded the other dog. They inspected the fences but found "no issues with the padlock and fencing". Arrangements were made for the dogs to be de-sexed.
64. DAS imposed on the tenant infringement notices of $100 in respect of each dog, and advised, by letter dated 8 June, that the dogs would only be returned to the tenant on conditions that:
(a) a fully-enclosed escape-proof dog yard be erected on the premises;
(b) the dogs were under the control of a responsible person aged at least 18 years, on adequate leashes or chains, and wearing muzzles, whenever they left the Roe Street premises; and
(c) the dogs be kept under effective control while on the premises so as to prevent them attacking or harassing another animal or a person.
65. On 18 May, Mrs Silvey reported the 17 May incident to Housing ACT, which replied on 19 May by letter recommending that Mrs Silvey seek help from DAS in relation to "disruptive animals".
66. On 18 June DAS officers inspected the Roe Street premises, and recorded:
Fully enclosed dog yard had been [installed], gates self closing with padlock and fencing all good.
67. The tenant agreed to comply with the conditions outlined at [64] above, and was allowed to re-claim her dogs, apparently some time after 23 July when, the records indicate, the dogs were transported to the RSPCA for de-sexing.
68. Housing inspections were conducted at the premises on 12 July and 5 October. After the 5 October inspection, the Housing ACT officer recorded:
Nobody home - left a calling card.
Had falling out with her daughter a couple of weeks ago. Tnt advised that she has broken into her house as locks are not secure. Front SSD is also not secure as if you lock it with the key, you can flick the switch to unlock. Wants house to be secured properly.
Disputes sundry debt from 2005. Was incarcerated at time. HM to follow up + send copy of invoice + stat dec
Front & back lawn needs mowing
69. There were no complaints about the dogs until the plaintiff was attacked on 7 October.
70. Complaints about the dogs on the premises were received in January 2012 and August 2013.
71. It seems from this evidence that before the plaintiff was attacked:
(a) the tenant's dogs were, much of the time, registered as dangerous dogs (for instance, at [58] above there is a reference to the tenants being "reminded" of the need to "re-register" the dogs);
(b) Housing ACT was aware that the tenant's dogs were regarded as troublesome by the neighbours (apparently with justification, even before the attack on the plaintiff), and had repeatedly reminded the tenant of her obligations in relation to the behaviour of her dogs;
(c) DAS:
- (i) had conducted a number of fence inspections, usually finding that the fences, gates and locks were appropriate and in working order;
- (ii) had more than once either impounded a dog belonging to the tenant or given notice to the tenant requiring her to present the dog to the pound (although it is not clear whether the notices were complied with or whether any non-compliance was followed up); and
- (iii) had responded quickly to the complaint about current dangerous activity by the dogs (as distinct from complaints about past activity), had impounded both dogs as quickly as possible, and had taken other steps to deal with the ongoing issues (at [62] to [66] above);
(d) although there were numerous complaints about the dogs roaming the street, there had been no complaints about the behaviour of the dogs while on the Roe Street premises.
72. An overview of the regulatory background against which the events dealt with in this proceeding took place is useful in considering some of the plaintiff's submissions.
73. The defendant is the Commissioner, a corporation established by s 9 of the Housing Assistance Act 2007 (ACT). The defendant's functions, set out in s 11 of that Act, relevantly include:
(a) administering, on behalf of the Territory, programs and funding arrangements for delivering housing assistance in the ACT by way of -
(iii) financial assistance to home owners and tenants; and
74. The main objects of the Housing Assistance Act are set out in s 6(1) of that Act, and relevantly include the following:
(a) to maximise the opportunities for everyone in the ACT to have access to housing that is affordable, secure and appropriate to their needs; and
(b) to facilitate the provision of housing assistance for those most in need;
A person administering this Act must have regard to the objects of the Act to the maximum extent practicable considering the resources available to the person.
76. In providing housing, the defendant operates under the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (ACT), which among other things provides standard clauses for residential leases in the ACT. That Act permits additional provisions to be included in residential leases, except for provisions that are inconsistent with, or modify, the standard clauses.
77. Under s 76 of that Act, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) has jurisdiction "to hear and decide any matter that may be the subject of an application to the ACAT under" the Act or the standard residential tenancy terms. That jurisdiction was until 2009 conferred on the Residential Tenancies Tribunal.
78. The Residential Tenancies Act also provides for action to be taken by lessors in relation to breaches of tenancy agreements. The standard terms for tenancy agreements (included in Attachment A to the tenancy agreement in relation to the Roe Street premises) set out the circumstances in which a tenancy may be terminated at the instigation of the lessor. These are, in brief:
(a) for failure to pay rent (cl 92, requiring an order by the Tribunal (ACAT));
(b) for breach other than non-payment of rent (cl 93, requiring an order by the Tribunal (ACAT));
(c) with 26 weeks notice, but not so as to require a tenant to vacate during a fixed term of the tenancy (cl 94); and
(d) during a periodic tenancy, with four weeks notice if the lessor, a family member or other person with a relationship with the lessor is to move into the premises; with eight weeks notice if the lessor intends to sell the premises; and with 12 weeks notice if the lessor intends major building work in the premises (cl 96).
79. Thus, the defendant could evict a tenant who is in breach of a term of the tenancy agreement by giving 26 weeks notice (unless that period would finish within a fixed term of the tenancy), or, for a breach of the tenancy agreement, by obtaining an order from ACAT.
80. Section 83 of the Residential Tenancies Act sets out the orders that may be made by ACAT in dealing with a tenancy dispute. Those orders include an order giving vacant possession of the premises to an applicant (what might be described as an "eviction order") (s 83(i) of the Act), but also include orders restraining action in breach of a residential tenancy agreement or requiring performance of a residential tenancy agreement (ss 83(a) and (b)); the latter is probably what is referred to in the plaintiff's submissions from time to time as a "compliance order".
81. There is no guarantee that the defendant could have obtained a compliance order, or an eviction order, quickly or indeed at all, and such an order would have been subject to appeal within ACAT and then to the Supreme Court (ss 79 and 86 of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2008 (ACT)).
82. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that ACAT would have agreed to make either a compliance order or an eviction order if the tenant's "breach" did not involve keeping a dog that had caused a nuisance, or interfered with the quiet enjoyment of the neighbours (cl 71 of the standard clauses) but simply involved, for instance, keeping a dog that had been identified, and was registered, as a dangerous dog in accordance with the requirements of the Domestic Animals Act 2000 (ACT).
83. In its capacity as the lessor of public housing, the Commissioner maintained and implemented the Pets Policy (relevant extracts are set out at [173] below).
84. The keeping of domestic animals in the ACT is regulated under the Domestic Animals Act. That Act provides, among other things, a general registration system for dogs kept in the ACT, which includes a more stringent system of licences for dogs that have been identified as "dangerous" by declaration made by the registrar under s 22 of the Act. The Act also includes provisions for the destruction of dogs in certain circumstances, creates offences in connection with the keeping and supervision of dogs, and renders the keepers of dogs liable for injuries or damage caused by dogs in certain circumstances.
85. Powers under the Domestic Animals Act may be exercised by authorised persons appointed by the relevant director-general. Such a person may not exercise powers without first showing his or her photographic identity card (s 125). There is no apparent bar to officers of Housing ACT being appointed as authorised persons under the Domestic Animals Act, but such people would, in relation to the regulation of dangerous dogs, be exercising the powers of an authorised person under the Domestic Animals Act, not powers conferred on the Commissioner.
86. The defendant says that in the ACT, unlike NSW, there are no prohibited breeds of dog. This is not challenged by the plaintiff.
87. The plaintiff drew attention to Schedule 1 to the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956 (Cth), which includes "American pit bull terrier or pit bull terrier" under a heading "Goods the importation of which is prohibited absolutely". This may confirm that the presence of such dogs in Australia is seen, at least by the Commonwealth government and Parliament, as undesirable, but it does not establish anything about the defendant's obligations in relation to the management of its tenancies.
88. In the statement of claim, the duty of care asserted is identified as a duty of care to the plaintiff:
13.1. to ensure the plaintiff would not suffer injury or damage while visiting the Property; and
13.2. to ensure the plaintiff would not suffer injury or damage because of the state of the Property; and
13.3 to ensure the plaintiff would not suffer injury or damage because of the defendant's failure to remedy the state of the Property; and
13.4. in accordance with section 168 of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002.
13.5. to ensure that Helen Hines, the tenant, would not be allowed or permitted to have an American Pitbull dog on the property;
13.6. to ensure that no American Pitbull dogs were on the property at all;
13.7. to ensure no prohibited breed dogs namely an American Pitbull dog was on the property; and
13.8. to ensure a pet policy that provided a safe environment for residents, visitors and guests at the property.
90. The plaintiff also sought to add, into the statement of claim, a further statement of the defendant's duty of care, as follows:
13A. The defendant as occupier of the property owed a duty to persons coming onto the property to ensure that anyone on the property did not suffer injury or damage because of the state of the property or things done or omitted to be done about the state of the property.
91. In the course of the hearing and immediately thereafter, the plaintiff provided at least six sets of written submissions, five dated respectively 17 June 2015, 7 July 2015, 14 July 2015, 16 July 2015 and 20 July 2015, and one undated.
92. Two of the submissions provide a fairly orthodox recital of the facts and the legal arguments relied on, and arguments in response to the defence submissions.
93. The other four submissions (which rely heavily on the use of words entirely in upper case and bold fonts, claims that the defendant's submissions are "nonsense", and reminders of earlier submissions), make increasingly shrill claims about the defendant's liability and rely increasingly heavily on particular findings by Mossop M in Harris v Commissioner for Social Housing [2013] ACTSC 186; 8 ACTLR 98 (Harris), despite the considerable factual differences between Harris and the current case.
94. I have struggled to draw these various submissions into a coherent set of arguments that can be sensibly addressed.
95. The plaintiff relies on two separate Acts in claiming that the defendant is liable for the injuries suffered by the plaintiff, being the Wrongs Act, and the Domestic Animals Act. Under the draft amended statement of claim, it seems that two different duties are asserted to arise from the defendant's capacity as an occupier of the Roe Street premises, but it is not clear:
(a) whether the nature or scope of those duties is said to be different depending on whether the duty is owed to the plaintiff or to "persons coming onto the property" more generally; or
(b) whether the proposed additional duty is said to arise only under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act or whether it is also said to arise under the Wrongs Act by reference to a different incident of the defendant's capacity as a "occupier" of the Roe Street premises.
96. The plaintiff's primary claim is covered by ch 4 of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002 (ACT) (the Wrongs Act).
97. The Commissioner says that the plaintiff must show:
(a) that the Commissioner owed him a duty of care;
(b) that the duty was breached, having regard to ss 42 and 43 of the Wrongs Act; and
(c) that the breach of duty "caused" the plaintiff's injuries as explained in s 45 of that Act.
98. Section 42 describes the standard of care required of a defendant who owes a duty of care. Section 43 identifies the pre-requisites for a finding of negligence involving a failure to take precautions against a risk of harm.
99. Section 110 of the Wrongs Act sets out principles that apply in decisions about whether a public or other authority has, or has breached, a duty of care. Those principles relate to matters including the limited resources available to such authorities and the scope for challenging the allocation of resources by the authority.
100. Section 112 of the Wrongs Act restricts the circumstances in which a public authority may be liable under that Act for a failure to exercise or to consider exercising a function of prohibiting or regulating an activity.
101. The plaintiff says that, under s 168 of the Wrongs Act, the defendant is liable as the occupier of the Roe Street premises for the state of those premises. As the occupier, the defendant owes a duty of care to "anyone on the premises"; that duty is "to take all care that is reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that such a person does not suffer injury or damage because of ... the state of the premises" (s 168(1)).
102. The plaintiff notes that s 168 replaces the common law rules about the standard of care required of a occupier, but does not affect other common law rules about occupiers' liability or any statutory or contractual obligations of an occupier.
103. Next, the plaintiff says that when he was on the Roe Street premises, he was a person to whom a duty under s 168 would be owed. This is not disputed.
104. The plaintiff also says that the presence of a dog on the premises is an aspect of "the state of the premises".
105. If the presence of dogs on the premises was an aspect of the state of the premises for which the defendant was responsible or which the defendant could control, then the steps that could have been taken to ensure that people on the premises did not suffer injury or harm as a result of the dogs' presence would have been to exclude the dogs from the premises or, possibly, to give and enforce directions about the management of dogs on the premises. If the defendant did not have the capacity to exclude the dogs from the premises, or even to give and enforce directions about the keeping of the dogs, then it could not control that aspect of the "state of the premises", and there were no reasonable steps that the defendant could or should have taken.
106. In support of the claim that the defendant was liable to the plaintiff for the particular injury the plaintiff suffered while he was on the Roe Street premises, the plaintiff then makes submissions in relation to a number of the matters that are commonly considered by courts in determining whether a duty of care is owed to a plaintiff. However, it is notable that, in the draft amended statement of claim, some of these matters are raised not in relation to the pleaded liability under s 168 but in relation to what appears to be an entirely separate claim against that defendant that is said to arise under the Domestic Animals Act. These matters are discussed further at [239] and following below.
107. The plaintiff says that the defendant breached its duty of care to him by failing to take reasonable steps to ensure that he was not injured as a result of the state of the Roe Street premises (including the presence of two dangerous dogs).
108. The exact nature of that asserted breach, or of the reasonable steps that the plaintiff says should have been, but were not, taken, is not so clear. The draft amended statement of claim lists 14 particulars of negligence, as follows:
14.1. Failing to ensure the Property was safe;
14.2. Failing to enforce the terms of the Tenancy Agreement;
14.3. Failing to require the Tenant remedy the breach of the Tenancy Agreement;
14.4. Failing to require the removal of the Dog at the Property prior to 7 October 2010;
14.5. Failing to ensure the Property was suitable for the keeping of the Dog;
14.6. Allowing and/or permitting the Dogs to remain on the property;
14.7. Failing to heed and/or act on its knowledge of the dangers of the Dogs;
14.8. Failing to assess the Dogs properly or at all for their suitability to remain on the property;
14.9. Failing to manage, supervise or control the Dogs adequately or at all;
14.10. Allowing the dogs to be inside the house on the property.
14.11. Failing to ensure the safety of visitors on or upon the property.
14.12. Permitting American Pitbull dogs to be on the property at all.
14.13. Permitting a prohibited breed dog namely an American Pitbull to be on the property.
14.14. Having a pet policy that did not ensure a safe environment for residents, visitors and guests at the property.
109. There is some inconsistency in these particulars of negligence, given that, while most of them seem to amount to a failure to prevent the keeping of the dogs on the premises at all, several of them (for instance, particulars 14.5 and 14.8) appear to contemplate arrangements under which the dogs might have been permitted to remain on the property. Likewise, in the plaintiff's written submissions there are references to a failure to exclude the dogs from the premises, but also references to the defendant's failure to give certain directions to the tenant about the arrangements under which the dogs are kept.
110. If the plaintiff's basic proposition is that the defendant's obligation was to ensure that dangerous dogs were not kept by its tenants on its premises, then the only relevant action by the defendant would seem to have been prohibiting the keeping of such dogs and enforcing that prohibition in whatever way was necessary. However, the directions suggested by the plaintiff, both in the amended statement of claim and in submissions, provide a broader range of options, and to that extent raise questions about causation.
111. As well, the plaintiff refers in submissions to other apparently more remote failures by the defendant, including:
(a) a failure to act under the Pets Policy by asking for licence or registration details for the dogs;
(b) a failure to seek further information to enable consideration of whether the dogs were suitable "pets" to be kept on the Roe Street premises; and
(c) a failure to review the Pets Policy in the light of knowledge of the dangerous propensities of certain dogs, including in particular Pit Bull Terriers.
112. The plaintiff also raises the need for a policy to be consistent with relevant legislation (Drake v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (No 2) [1979] AATA 179; 2 ALD 634 (Drake)), but without identifying the legislation said to be relevant or the nature of any inconsistencies between the Pets Policy and the allegedly relevant (if unidentified) legislation.
113. The plaintiff's submission about causation is that "common sense dictates" that if the defendant had prevented the tenant keeping the dogs on the Roe Street premises, the plaintiff would not have been injured.
114. This submission is problematic in several ways, but particularly to the extent that the defendant's alleged breach of duty is expressed not as a failure to exclude the dogs from the premises but as a failure to give directions aimed at excluding the dogs or ensuring that the dogs were properly restrained at all times.
115. In the plaintiff's submissions, particular reliance is placed on several decided cases, being:
(a) Modbury Triangle v Anzil [2000] HCA 61; 205 CLR 254 (Modbury Triangle);
(b) Adeels Palace Pty Ltd v Moubarak [2009] HCA 48; 239 CLR 420 (Adeels Palace);
(c) Karatjas v Deakin University [2012] VSCA 53; 35 VR 355 (Karatjas); and
(d) Harris, a case involving an unsuccessful claim against the Commissioner for injury caused by the tenant of one of the Commissioner's dwellings to the tenants of nearby dwellings.
Claim under Domestic Animals Act - the arguments
116. The plaintiff's second claim, also pleaded under a "negligence" heading, is made under the Domestic Animals Act. Section 55 of that Act imposes on the keeper of a dangerous dog a strict liability for injury or damage caused by the dog.
117. The parties agree that the tenant would be liable under s 55 for the injuries suffered by the plaintiff, but as I have already noted, she has not been sued because she is assumed to have no way of meeting any damages award made against her.
118. However, in an attempt to overcome this problem, the plaintiff seeks to attribute that undisputed liability of the tenant to the defendant as the lessor of the premises occupied by the tenant. The plaintiff says that the defendant is also a keeper of the dog, and is "coextensively and concurrently" liable with the tenant under s 55 for the injuries suffered by the plaintiff. The plaintiff pleads that:
the defendant was vicariously responsible to the plaintiff for the strict liability of [the tenant] as keeper of the Dogs whilst the Dogs were on the property with the knowledge and control of the defendant [and that] the defendant had a special duty to the plaintiff whilst the Dogs were on the property which required the defendant to ensure that reasonable care was taken to all persons coming onto the property.
The defendant's control over the keeping of dogs
119. The defendant's role in, and responsibility for, the keeping of dogs on the Roe Street premises is central to this case. It is vital in the determination of whether the defendant owed a duty of care and, if so, whether that duty was breached. It is also fundamental to the claim that the defendant is jointly liable with the tenant under the Domestic Animals Act.
120. It is accordingly convenient to deal first with the various factual questions that arise in relation to that issue.
121. The plaintiff says that the Commissioner, as the lessor of the Roe Street premises, had a right to control the keeping of dogs on those premises, and a responsibility for the keeping of any such dogs (either a responsibility that was imposed on it in some way, or a responsibility that it had by its actions assumed).
122. The defendant's capacity to control is said to arise under the terms of the tenancy agreement entered into between the defendant and the tenant.
123. The plaintiff also points out that under the Pets Policy, the defendant had a right to ask the tenant to give licence or registration details for the dogs kept by her.
124. Next, the plaintiff says that the Pets Policy was inadequate, in that it did not require tenants to give information to the defendant to enable the defendant to determine whether a particular animal was appropriate to be kept on premises leased from the defendant; and it had not been reviewed taking account of the known dangers of dogs in general and the dangerous propensities of certain breeds of dogs in particular, including American Pitbulls such as the dog responsible for the attack on the plaintiff.
125. Finally, the plaintiff says that the defendant may not have considered the dangers of keeping certain pets in its premises.
126. The Commissioner concedes that it was the lessor of the Roe Street premises, where the dogs were kept, but says that it had no right to take any steps against the tenant in respect of her keeping pets in those premises, in particular because Attachment C of the tenancy agreement did not apply to the tenant's tenancy.
127. The tenancy agreement signed by the tenant Ms Hines consists of a "Schedule of Tenancy Details" and Attachments A, B, C, and D. The Schedule sets out the specifics of the tenancy such as the address of the property, the name of the tenant and the rent payable, and refers to the attachments in the following recital:
I acknowledge receipt of the following which set out the terms and conditions of this Tenancy Agreement, and that I have read and understood these documents:
Attachment A Prescribed Terms of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997
Attachment B Commissioner's Additional Terms
Attachment C Rules of the Complex - Flat/Townhouse/Aged Persons Unit*
Attachment D Special Conditions*
Attachment E Energy Efficient Rating Statement
128. Attachment A, despite its description, appears to set out the terms of the tenancy, not the terms of the Residential Tenancies Act. The terms of the tenancy, however, are essentially the contents of Schedule 1 to the Residential Tenancies Act as that Act was in force on the date the agreement was signed (there are minor differences in such things as numbering and formatting).
129. Attachment A contains a variety of provisions that as expressed will not be applicable to all tenancies. For instance, clause 13 of Attachment A requires the lessor to provide certain information to the tenant, and that information is different for premises that are under the Unit Titles Act 1970 (ACT); clause 14 says that payment of a bond is not necessary unless required by the lessor; clauses 15 and 16 make provisions for any required bond; and clauses 17 to 20 make provisions that apply only where a bond is required or apply only where a particular party is required to lodge the bond with the Office of Rental Bonds. Attachment A does not even appear to be specific to tenancies for premises managed by the Commissioner.
130. Attachment B contains what are described in the attachment as "Commissioners [sic] Additional Terms". These include provisions limiting who may live at a property rented from the Commissioner, provisions for payment of rent, and provisions dealing with renovations and alterations made by tenants. Like Attachment A, this attachment also contains provisions that are not applicable to all tenancies. In particular, clause 14 says:
If the Property is a flat, townhouse or Aged Persons Unit, Tenants must comply with the applicable Rules of the Complex.
131. Attachment C is the "Rules of the Complex" referred to in Attachment B. It is expressed to apply to "Flat/Townhouse/Aged Persons Unit". The Rules include:
6. Pets must not be kept without written permission from the Commissioner.
132. Attachment D is headed "Special Conditions" and contains a single provision requiring rent to be paid by direct deduction from the tenant's entitlements under the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth).
133. Attachment E was not attached to the exhibited copy of the tenancy agreement. It is not clear, but it does not seem to matter, whether it was intended to be part of Ms Hines' tenancy.
134. The tenancy agreement is clearly a multi-purpose or template agreement. As noted, it contains a variety of provisions that that will not be applicable to all tenancies.
135. The Crown lease under which the Commissioner held the Roe Street premises includes a plan showing a block roughly 45m x 18m in size, with what is described as a "brick residence" constructed against one side boundary of the block, and sharing a party wall with a similar house constructed on the adjoining block. In my view, the building on the block is properly referred to as a semi-detached house (although this does not necessarily exclude other descriptions of the building).
136. The plaintiff says that under Attachment C in the tenancy agreement, the tenant needed the Commissioner's permission to keep dogs on the Roe Street premises, and that this is the source of the defendant's capacity to control the presence of dogs on those premises.
137. The defendant says that Attachment C, and in particular the requirement to obtain written permission from the defendant before a pet may be kept, does not apply to Ms Hines' tenancy, since the tenancy does not relate to a flat, townhouse, or aged persons unit.
138. The plaintiff makes two main points in support of the submission that Attachment C applies to the tenancy; he relies:
(a) first, on the inclusion of Attachment C in the bundle of documents making up the tenancy agreement and initialled by the tenant; and
(b) secondly, on the proposition that the premises are a townhouse or flat within the meaning of Attachment C.
Inclusion of Attachment C in tenancy document
139. Every page of the tenancy agreement signed by the tenant, Ms Hines, has been initialled, apparently by Ms Hines. That includes Attachment C. The plaintiff argues that Attachment C is therefore applicable to the tenancy and submits, curiously in my view, that if I find that Attachment C was not applicable to the tenancy, I must decide why the tenant was required to sign it.
140. As set out at [127] above, the tenant's acknowledgement is that she has received the tenancy agreement and a number of attachments (the tenancy documents), and has "read and understood these documents". I am satisfied that this is not in any sense an acknowledgement by the tenant that every part of the tenancy documents received and initialled applies to her tenancy, and nor, for present purposes, could any such acknowledgement override the explicit provisions within the documents specifying the limited application of various elements of those documents.
141. In other words, the fact that the tenant has initialled Attachment C does not establish that Attachment C is applicable to her tenancy. At most it may be taken to show an acknowledgement by the tenant that she has received, read and understood Attachment C. That form of acknowledgment is not inconsistent with the tenant's understanding being that Attachment C did not apply to the tenancy - although in this case, what the tenant understood about the significance of Attachment C seems to be irrelevant.
142. Rather, it is necessary to look to the contents of the tenancy agreement to determine whether Attachment C applied to the tenancy in this case.
143. Clause 13 of Attachment B says that Attachment B has precedence over the "Rules of the Complex". Clause 14 of Attachment B, also initialled by the tenant, states that Attachment C only applies to a "flat, townhouse or Aged Persons Unit", and Attachment C is explicitly applicable only to such dwellings.
144. There has been no claim that the Roe Street premises were an aged persons unit, but the plaintiff says that Attachment C applied to the premises because those premises were a flat or townhouse.
145. The defendant says, however, that the tenancy did not relate to a flat or townhouse within the meaning of Attachment C and cl 14 of Attachment B.
Reference to "Flat" in Schedule of Tenancy Details
146. The plaintiff points to the fact that the Schedule of Tenancy Details describes the premises subject to the tenancy as "Flat 000 Block 00[xx] Section 048 Division 220 Address [xx] Roe Street, Griffith ACT 2603", and says that therefore it "defines the premises as a flat".
147. I am satisfied that this description is a template one which is used for various properties managed by the Commissioner, and that the insertion of "000" as the "Flat" identifier does not mean that the property is a flat numbered "000", but means instead that the property does not have a number identifying it as a flat, and implies that the property is not treated as a flat by the lessor (ie the Commissioner). This is not a basis on which I could find that the Roe Street premises were a flat.
148. Next, the plaintiff submits that there are meanings legitimately given to "townhouse" that could include the Roe Street premises. These meanings are not, however, found in the tenancy agreement.
149. First, the plaintiff refers to the Australian Census dictionary published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which contains, under the heading "Dwelling Structure", a "definition" of "townhouse" as follows:
Semi-detached, row or terrace house, townhouse, etc.: These dwellings have their own private grounds and no other dwelling above or below them. They are either attached in some structural way to one or more dwellings or are separated from neighbouring dwellings by less than half a metre.
150. This "definition", or more accurately this category description, is contrasted, in the Census document, with headings of "Separate house" and "Flat, unit or apartment".
151. The relevant category has been adopted for the purposes of the Census (specifically, to classify "the structure of private dwellings enumerated in the Census") and is used "to monitor changes in housing characteristics, to help formulate housing policies and to review existing housing stock". It is not immediately or obviously relevant to whether the Roe Street premises can be identified as a flat or a townhouse for the purpose of Attachment C of the tenancy agreement.
152. Perhaps more importantly, this is not a true definition which gives a meaning to a specified expression. The "definition" relied on simply brings various different kinds of dwellings into one of several categories against which numbers of dwellings are recorded; the "definition" would operate in the same way if the description of the dwellings that included townhouses was headed, for instance, "Category two", but it would be clear in such a case that the fact that a dwelling fitted one of the descriptions included in the category did not mean that the dwelling also fitted any or all of the other descriptions included in that category.
153. As already noted, the tenancy relates to a dwelling that in my view is properly described as a semi-detached house. The house has its own private grounds and is "attached in some structural way to" the house on the adjoining block. Thus, it probably would be counted for Census purposes under the "Semi-detached, row or terrace house, townhouse" category. However, the fact that the Roe Street premises, as a semi-detached house, seem to fall within the category headed "Semi-detached, row or terrace house, townhouse" does not establish that it is also, or alternatively, a "townhouse" as distinct from a "semi-detached house". The Census category may provide for several kinds of dwellings to be counted under a single heading, but this does not mean that each such dwelling is properly described by the names of all the kinds of dwellings mentioned in that heading.
154. As well, the defendant submits that interpreting the expressions "flat" and "townhouse" by reference to the rest of the tenancy agreement confirms that the Roe Street premises, not being part of any kind of residential "complex", are not intended to be covered by those expressions. Other provisions of the tenancy agreement relied on by the defendant are:
(a) the definition of "complex" in Attachment B (cl 13), which refers to "the block of flats or units which includes" the property subject to the tenancy;
(b) the reference in cl 16 of Attachment B to "Additional Areas", which includes "any balcony, courtyard, or garden and any garage, carport, storage area or other part of the Complex allocated for the sole use of the Tenants" under the tenancy agreement; and
(c) the references in Attachment C to stairwells, lifts, passageways and landings, and to rules regarding access to laundries and other shared facilities, and to parking spaces.
155. The exclusion of the Roe Street premises from Attachment C would also be consistent with the "fact sheet" description of premises to which the "Rules of the Complex" apply (albeit that the description is inconsistent with the words of the tenancy agreement) as "a flat, unit or apartment managed by a body corporate under the Unit Titles Act 2001".
156. Finally, the plaintiff provided definitions of "town house" from the online Merriam-Webster dictionary (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, town house ), being:
a house that has two or three levels and that is attached to a similar house by a shared wall
a house in the city or town; especially: a house in the town or city owned by someone who also has a house in the country
a house in town; specifically: the city residence of one having a country seat or having a chief residence elsewhere
a usually single-family house of two or sometimes three stories that is usually connected to a similar house by a common sidewall; also: ROW HOUSE
157. The plaintiff relies in particular on the last definition, but there is no evidence before me that the Roe Street premises had two or more storeys. In any case, there is no reason why I would assume that the tenancy agreement provided under ACT legislation and used by the body responsible for public housing in the ACT was drafted by reference to an American dictionary.
158. The defendant referred to the Macquarie Dictionary definition of "townhouse":
one of a group of dwellings each sharing a common wall with another, each sold under strata title, and each with ground floor access.
159. The Roe Street premises might fall under this definition, if two houses can be described as a group, and if those premises are covered by a strata title (or, in the ACT, unit title). There is, however, no evidence that the premises fall under the ACT's unit titles legislation, and nor is that suggested by the form of the Crown lease (see also Lucas v Commissioner for Social Housing for the ACT [2011] ACTSC 11 at [22]).
160. The plaintiff also claims to rely on the definition of "premises" as set out in the Residential Tenancies Act, which is as follows:
"premises" includes -
(a) any habitable structure, whether it is fixed to the land or not; and
(b) part of any premises; and
(c) any land, buildings or structures belonging to the premises.
161. The plaintiff says that this definition "gives context and meaning to the defendant's tenancy agreement", but without explaining what particular (or relevant) context or meaning it gives.
162. I accept that this definition is relevant to interpreting a tenancy agreement under the Residential Tenancies Act: For instance, the definition would be useful in answering a question about whether the tenancy agreement applied to the backyard of the house. However, I cannot see how this definition supports the proposition that the Roe Street premises are any particular kind of premises mentioned in the tenancy agreement.
163. Finally, the plaintiff argued that as a matter of policy, even free-standing houses should have been covered by the requirement to obtain written permission for the keeping of pets. The submission is as follows:
164. I do not accept that the quoted material from the Pets Policy (at [173] below) is inconsistent with confining, to relatively high-density complexes, the requirement to obtain the Commissioner's written permission before a pet can be kept.
165. Pet-keeping in higher-density complexes has potentially a far greater impact on other residents of such complexes than pet-keeping by residents of larger premises without common property and with more separation between the premises. This would justify greater regulation of the keeping of pets in such complexes.
166. On the other hand, the drawing of a distinction for some purposes between keeping pets in high or medium density complexes and in low density housing does not mean that other aspects of the policy cannot apply equally to the keeping of all pets; for instance, the reference to ensuring "that pets are kept in a manner which ensures their well being", is clearly of general application to all public housing, as are the policy aspects referred to by the plaintiff relating to the protection of the defendant's dwellings and the dangers of keeping dangerous or vicious animals in such dwellings.
167. At first glance, the implication of the plaintiff's submission, namely that as a matter of policy the defendant should have required any tenant to seek its permission before keeping in public housing an animal that had been officially recognised as dangerous or vicious, may seem sensible; but on a second look it becomes clear that there is no reason why such a policy should only have applied to public housing, and no reason why it should not also apply to owner-occupiers. Furthermore, even if the policy proposal were sensible, that would not require it to be read into a written document that is not apt to implement it.
168. That is, the declaration of an animal as dangerous or vicious is significant as a matter of policy, if at all, to the keeping of dangerous or vicious dogs in any premises in the ACT. The apparent general undesirability of permitting dangerous or vicious dogs in residential premises does not permit me to read Attachment C to the tenancy agreement as if it required the defendant's permission for the keeping of such animals in any public housing, rather than only in the kinds of public housing to which the document is expressed to apply.
169. I am satisfied that Attachment C of the tenancy agreement did not apply to the lease of the Roe Street premises, did not require the tenant to have the defendant's permission to keep pets there, and therefore did not give the defendant a right to refuse permission to keep pets in those premises.
170. I reject the plaintiff's assertion (at [139] above) that, having reached this conclusion, I must "decide" why the tenant was required to sign Attachment C. The most likely explanation would seem to be that, as noted at [134] above, the agreement is a template agreement and every tenant is offered the same tenancy agreement, with only the Schedule of Tenancy details (at [127] above) containing information identifying the specific tenancy - but there is no relevant evidence before me on which such a finding could be based, and no need for me to make such a finding anyway; the question simply does not arise in this matter.
Implication of Attachment C not applying to tenancy
171. The plaintiff also submits in this context that if the defendant is correct that the requirement for permission to keep pets included in Attachment C does not apply to the tenant because of the nature of the dwelling let to her, then it would follow that the defendant, as an occupier, "specifically did not consider the dangers of keeping pets upon" the premises concerned (at [163] above).
172. I am not convinced that this "follows" at all; more significantly, I do not know what would then follow from a finding that the defendant "specifically did not consider the dangers of keeping pets upon" the Roe Street premises. Perhaps the plaintiff intended this submission to be relevant to the question whether a duty of care, if found, had been breached, but this seems unlikely since it was included in the submissions about the scope of the tenancy agreement.
173. The defendant maintained the Pets Policy which, as put in evidence, included the following relevant provisions:
Context
This Policy details Housing ACT's requirements for a tenant wishing to keep animals and birds in public rental accommodation. It recognises:
...
Controlling your Pets
Tenants are responsible for controlling their pets. Should a pet cause nuisance or display vicious behaviour Housing ACT will investigate and take appropriate follow-up action. If complaints are substantiated, Housing ACT will;
...
Obtaining Licences
Tenants who wish to keep pets are required to obtain and maintain any and all applicable licences and registrations and must comply with all applicable ACT Legislation and Codes of Practice.
Tenants who wish to keep animals such as snakes, other reptiles and other "exotic" animals, may be required to have and maintain a licence specific to the breed of animal. Also note that a dog which has been declared dangerous may only be kept if the owner obtains a Dangerous Dog licence.
In all cases tenants are responsible for obtaining and maintaining licences/registrations and must supply details to Housing ACT if requested. Details of licensing/registration requirements are available from Environment ACT as noted above.
174. A summary of important aspects of the Pets Policy was also set out in a "fact sheet" apparently aimed at tenants of Housing ACT, as follows:
Tenants do not require approval from Housing ACT to keep pets and animals (hereafter pets). However, tenants are required to obtain and maintain any and all applicable licences and registrations and must comply with all applicable ACT Legislation and Codes of Practice.
If the tenant resides at a flat, unit or apartment managed by a body corporate under the Unit Titles Act 2001, the tenant must comply with all rules and by-laws of the body corporate and the provisions of the Commissioner for Social Housing Tenancy Agreement - Rules of the Complex.
Tenant Responsibilities
Housing ACT is concerned for the well being of pets and the continued health and safety of the human inhabitants of its dwellings. In order to ensure both goals are met tenants are responsible for:
...
Dealing with complaints
When complaints are received about nuisance caused by a pet Housing ACT will investigate to determine if the tenant is breaching their Tenancy Agreement. If the complaint is proven Housing ACT will work with the tenant to assist him/her to sustain their tenancy.
In those cases where all attempts to assist the tenant to comply with their Tenancy Agreement fail, Housing ACT will treat the situation the same as any other breach of the Tenancy Agreement and have no alternative other than to commence legal proceedings, through the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, to remove the pet and/or the tenant from the dwelling.
175. It is notable that in the "fact sheet", the premises identified as subject to "Rules of the Complex" (that is, Attachment C to the tenancy agreement) are described as "a flat, unit or apartment managed by a body corporate under the Unit Titles Act 2001".
(a) under the Pets Policy, the defendant had a right to ask for licence or registration details for the dogs kept by the tenant; and
(b) the Pets Policy was inadequate:
- (i) in that it did not require tenants to give information to the defendant so that the defendant could determine whether a particular animal was appropriate to be kept on premises leased by the defendant; and
- (ii) in that it had not been reviewed in relation to dangerous dogs.
(a) that they must obtain and maintain applicable licences and registrations for their pets, and must comply with "all applicable ACT Legislation and Codes of Practice";
(b) in particular, that dogs which have been declared dangerous may only be kept if the owner has a Dangerous Dog licence;
(c) that tenants must give details of any relevant licences and registrations to ACT Housing on request;
(d) that tenants are responsible for controlling their pets;
(e) that Housing ACT will investigate any nuisance or vicious behaviour by pets and "appropriate follow-up action" will be taken".
179. Follow-up action to be taken by Housing ACT may consist of either or both of initiating "action to remedy the problem" and involving an appropriate authority such as DAS or the AFP. Under the "fact sheet" also provided by the defendant (at [136] above), the defendant's approach, if a complaint about nuisance caused by a pet is proved, will be to "work with the tenant to assist him/her to sustain their tenancy". If the defendant's attempts to "assist the tenant to comply with their Tenancy Agreement" are not successful, then the defendant will "have no alternative other than to commence legal proceedings ... to remove the pet and/or the tenant from the dwelling".
180. The plaintiff is correct to point out that the Pets Policy entitled Housing ACT to ask the tenant for information about licences or registrations in respect of the dogs kept on the Roe Street premises. There is no evidence that the defendant did ask the tenant for any such information, but there is evidence (for instance as mentioned at [58] above) that DAS was aware of those registration details, and it seems that the tenant's dogs were generally properly registered and/or licensed.
181. However, the fact that the defendant could have asked for this information does not seem to take the plaintiff's argument anywhere. There is no basis for saying that the defendant could or would have done anything particular with licence or registration information (or information that licences or registration were not up to date) except draw this to DAS's attention if necessary. The evidence shows that DAS officers were well aware of the existence of the dogs and their presence on the Roe Street premises, and it is not apparent that an inquiry from the defendant to the tenant, even if it revealed that one or both of the dogs was not properly registered, would have led to anything more than advice from the defendant to DAS and then the tenant being pursued by DAS (not by the defendant) to update the licences or registrations under threat of having the dogs removed.
182. In particular, there is nothing in the tenancy agreement (once Attachment C has been excluded), and nothing in any relevant legislation that has been drawn to my attention, that would apparently have permitted the defendant to move immediately to terminate the tenancy if the dogs were at any point unlicensed or unregistered, or to take any other immediately useful action aimed at terminating the tenancy, or excluding the dogs from the premises, in response to receiving that information.
183. The plaintiff's submission that the Pets Policy was inadequate, in that it did not require tenants to give the defendant the information necessary for it to determine whether their pets were suitable to be kept in the relevant premises, also does not seem to go anywhere. There is no basis for finding that the purpose of the Pets Policy was to enable the defendant to determine whether a particular pet could be kept at all. For tenancies covered by Attachment C, under which the defendant's permission is required for the keeping of a pet, the defendant could have specified any reasonable requirement for the tenant to provide information about the proposed pet as a condition of determining an application for such permission. Apart from that, the suggestion that the defendant should have been able to require such information has no significance, since there was nothing in particular that the defendant would or could have done with the information.
184. The submission seems to assume a policy that gives the defendant both power and responsibility to control the keeping of pets, but the problem for the plaintiff is that clearly the Pets Policy does not do that.
185. If the plaintiff had established a duty of care by the defendant in relation to the keeping of pets in the defendant's leased premises, the claimed inadequacy of the Pets Policy might be relevant to determining whether the duty had been breached. However, any such inadequacy does not seem to help the plaintiff to establish that the defendant had the capacity to control the keeping of dogs on the Roe Street premises, or to establish that the defendant owed any duty of care in relation to the keeping of pets in its premises.
186. Finally in this context it is necessary to deal with the curious submission made late in the day in reliance on Drake, in which Brennan J said:
Of course, a policy must be consistent with the statute. It must allow the Minister to take into account the relevant circumstances, it must not require him to take into account irrelevant circumstances, and it must not serve a purpose foreign to the purpose for which the discretionary power was created. A policy which contravenes these criteria would be inconsistent with the statute ...
(emphasis added)
[c.] A policy MUST be consistent with any statute that is relevant to the matter. The policy must not allow or require the defendant to:
The authority for para 2(c) is [Drake] per Brennan J at page 6.5.
(emphasis in original)
188. The submission consists of a (partly accurate) paraphrase of Brennan J's remarks, except that, rather than identifying the statute or other source of the asserted purpose, it simply assumes, and asserts, that the purpose "for which the discretionary power was created" is "permitting or not permitting pets" (which I have treated, although with some hesitation, as a reference to a purpose of regulating the keeping of pets).
The Policy was inadequate for its purpose, part of which was to ensure that a dangerous or vicious animal was not kept upon the premises or if that dangerous or vicious animal was kept on the premises that appropriate measures were in place to protect people in that premises
190. The basis of these assertions about the purpose of the Pets Policy is not at any point identified. The Pets Policy specifically does not reveal a purpose of preventing dangerous or vicious animals being kept on the defendant's premises. It simply recognises "the dangers inherent in keeping" such animals, and notes the responsibilities of other agencies in that regard.
(a) reminds tenants of the defendant's interest in the keeping of pets in public housing, of the considerations the defendant regards as relevant to that matter, and of the obligations of tenants under other legislation relating to pet-keeping; and
(b) imposes a requirement on tenants to give the defendant certain information on request.
192. In the absence of any identified external basis for concluding that the purpose of the Pets Policy is in fact to regulate the keeping of pets in public housing, this submission goes nowhere.
193. I have summarised the effect of the Pets Policy at [178] above. I am satisfied that the policy did not suggest the possession or assumption by the defendant of any regulatory powers except its right to obtain certain information, and its intention to initiate appropriate responses to certain problems arising from the keeping of pets in the defendant's premises; on the contrary, the policy makes it clear that other authorities are responsible for regulating the keeping of pets generally.
Conclusions - defendant's capacity to control keeping of dogs
194. I accept that the defendant's Pets Policy gave the defendant some capacity to intervene in the keeping of dangerous dogs on the Roe Street premises, if those dogs caused nuisance or displayed vicious behaviour (as the evidence suggests the tenant's dogs did from time to time). However, that capacity was limited to seeking information about registration and licensing of the dogs, "initiating action to remedy the problem" and "involving an appropriate authority", that apparently being DAS or, conceivably, the AFP.
195. There is no indication in the Pets Policy that retention of a tenancy depended on compliance with that policy, or that the defendant had the power to enforce the policy (to the extent that it contains provisions that could be "enforced" by the defendant, or "complied with" by the tenant, at all) by termination of the tenancy. In that sense the Pets Policy can be distinguished from Attachment C to the tenancy agreement which, where applicable, prohibits a tenant from keeping pets in the leased premises without permission from the defendant. A failure to comply with that rule is a breach of clause 14 of Attachment B of the tenancy agreement, and such a breach might have permitted the initiation of steps to terminate a tenancy.
(a) that Attachment C did not apply to the tenant's tenancy;
(b) that accordingly the defendant's permission was not required for the tenant to keep the dogs on the Roe Street premises;
(c) that the Pets Policy disclosed the defendant's interest in the keeping of pets in public housing but did not confer, or disclose, any capacity in the defendant to control, directly, the keeping of pets, and did not indicate any assumption by the defendant of either control or responsibility for the keeping of pets.
197. The defendant's liability as an occupier of the premises is said to arise under s 168 of the Wrongs Act, which (as at 7 October 2010) was as follows:
(1) An occupier of premises owes a duty to take all care that is reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that anyone on the premises does not suffer injury or damage because of -
(b) things done or omitted to be done about the state of the premises.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), in deciding whether the duty of care has been discharged consideration must be given to the following:
(a) the gravity and likelihood of the probable injury;
(b) the circumstances of the entry onto the premises;
(d) the knowledge the occupier has or should have about the likelihood of people or property being on the premises;
(f) the ability of the person entering the premises to appreciate the danger;
(g) the burden on the occupier of removing the danger or protecting the person entering the premises from the danger as compared to the risk of the danger to the person.
(3) Part 7.1 (Damages for personal injuries - exclusions and limitations) and part 7.3 (Contributory negligence), other than section 102(2), apply in relation to a claim brought by a person against an occupier of premises in relation to injury or damage.
(4) This section replaces the common law rules about the standard of care an occupier of premises must show to people entering on the premises in relation to any dangers to them.
(a) other common law rules about the liability of occupiers to people entering on their premises; or
(b) any obligation an occupier of premises has under another Act or any statutory instrument or contract.
occupier, of premises, includes the lessor of premises let under a tenancy who -
(a) is under an obligation to the tenant to maintain or repair the premises; or
(b) could exercise a right to enter the premises to carry out maintenance or repairs.
(a) the Commissioner is under s 168 an occupier of the Roe Street premises;
(b) the Commissioner owes a duty of care under s 168 to ensure (among other things) that people on those premises do not suffer injury or damage because of the state of the premises;
(c) the presence of dangerous dogs in the premises is an aspect of "the state of the premises" for the purposes of s 168(1);
(d) the Commissioner was aware of the presence of dangerous dogs on the Roe Street premises;
(e) the Commissioner breached its duty of care as an occupier by permitting the dogs to remain on the Roe Street premises instead of removing them, or directing the tenant to remove them or keep them properly restrained; and
(f) the Commissioner is therefore liable for injury or damage suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the presence of those dangerous dogs on the Roe Street premises.
199. The defendant concedes that it is an "occupier" for the purposes of s 168 (Morales v Commissioner for Social Housing [2012] ACTSC 117) and that it owed a duty of care under s 168 in respect of "the state of the premises". The defendant does not dispute that any duty of care imposed by s 168 in the circumstances of this case would apply for the benefit of the plaintiff.
200. However, the defendant says that the plaintiff's proposition that "a dog forms part of the state of the premises" is untenable, at least in the circumstances of this case. While conceding that there may be cases in which an animal creates a hazard on the premises that gives rise to an obligation on the part of the landlord in its capacity as occupier, the defendant says that this is not one of those cases.
201. The defendant also points out that the evidence is that the tenant's dogs were potentially a hazard to the public when they were unrestrained in the street - but there is no evidence that the dogs posed a hazard when they were kept inside the premises.
202. In support of its s 168 argument, the plaintiff refers to Harris, and to Bryan v Warwick & Anor [2002] WADC 192; 29 SR(WA) 152 (Bryan).
203. In Harris, Mossop M considered a claim against the Commissioner, made in reliance on s 168, by three tenants of premises leased from the Commissioner. Their complaint related to the impact on them of a fourth tenant who occupied premises sharing a common entrance with those occupied by the plaintiffs. Mossop M summarised the contents of s 168 as follows at [142]:
The section provides that an occupier of premises owes a duty to take all care that is reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that anyone on the premises does not suffer injury or damage because of "the state of the premises" or "things are done or omitted to be done about the state of the premises": s 168(1). An "occupier" for these purposes includes a lessor of premises who is under an obligation to the tenant to maintain or repair the premises or could exercise a right to enter the premises to carry out maintenance or repairs: s 168(6). The section replaces the common law rules about the standard of care an occupier of premises must show to people entering on premises in relation to any dangers to them: s 168(4).
The reference to "the state of the premises" and the extended definition of occupier which refers to maintenance and repairs, indicate that the section is dealing with liability for hazards arising in relation to the physical nature of the premises over which the defendant had control.
205. Mossop M then went on to raise two questions:
(a) does the "state of the premises" extend beyond the physical condition of the premises so that it may include the behaviour of another tenant of the landlord in the same housing complex?
(b) if it does not so extend, does s 168 both define and limit the duties that may arise between occupiers and persons upon the premises so that the duties of occupiers are limited to the physical state of the premises, or does it simply define the test to be applied when the issue relates to the physical state of premises, leaving the common law to deal with other claims in negligence?
206. At [145] his Honour answered the second question by concluding that:
[section 168], in so far as it achieved anything at all, was not intended to limit in any significant way the rights of entrants against occupiers.
in relation to the first question, it does not really matter whether the "state of the premises" extends beyond physical features of the premises because s 168 does not limit the causes of action that may be brought against an occupier. The test applied under s 168 and under the common law is, in substance, the same.
208. His Honour did not explicitly identify the question whether the circumstances in which an occupier owes a duty of care are affected by the basis on which the person is found to be an "occupier" at all (a matter which in my view arises from the extended definition of "occupier" in s 168(6)). Instead, his Honour relied on the extended definition to propose that s 168 dealt with "liability for hazards arising in relation to the physical nature of the premises over which the defendant had control" (at [142]). I suspect, however, that these two approaches to the scope of the liability of a landlord "occupier" would generally yield the same outcomes.
209. The question faced by Mossop M was whether and if so in what circumstances a landlord's liability as occupier could or would include liability for the conduct of a tenant. His Honour reviewed the United Kingdom authorities in some depth (at [151] to [164]), and concluded at [165] that:
The United Kingdom authorities are persuasive authorities in support of the proposition that no duty of care is owed [in the circumstances in Harris].
210. His Honour went on to hold that the UK authorities should be followed in relation to the question arising in Harris.
211. Mossop M then referred to Sullivan v Moody [2001] HCA 59; 207 CLR 562, and considered three cases raising particular questions of occupiers' liability, being Modbury Triangle; Adeels Palace; and Proprietors of Strata Plan 17226 v Drakulic [2002] NSWCA 381; 55 NSWLR 659 (Drakulic).
212. In Modbury Triangle, the owner of a shopping centre was found not liable for injury caused to an employee of a tenant who was injured when he was attacked by criminals in the shopping centre car park at a time when the floodlights had been turned off by the defendant owner. Reasons for this conclusion included that the owner had no control over the actions of the criminals, that the plaintiff had not relied on the defendant, that the defendant had not assumed any responsibility, and that "the common law does not ordinarily impose liability for omissions" (Gleeson CJ at [26] with whom Gaudron J agreed at [42]). Hayne J at [117] also emphasised the absence of any duty to control the criminal conduct of others "except in very restricted circumstances". Callinan J at [140] adopted the statement of Dixon J in Smith v Leurs [1945] HCA 27; (1945) 70 CLR 256 at 262 that "it is exceptional to find in the law a duty to control another's actions to prevent harm to strangers".
213. Adeels Palace involved the shooting of a customer of licensed premises by another customer. The defendant was the owner and licensee of the premises. Mossop M at [171] summarised the result:
In a unanimous judgment the High Court found that, particularly in the light of the liquor harm minimisation provisions of the Liquor Act, the proprietor owed the plaintiffs a duty to take reasonable care to prevent injury to customers from violent, quarrelsome or disorderly conduct of other persons. However the Court held that, on the facts of the particular case, causation was not established because it had not been established that the measures that were alleged to have been required would have prevented the shooting.
214. The High Court explained the difference between Modbury Triangle and Adeels Palace, saying at [23]:
Contrary to the submissions on behalf of Adeels Palace, this Court's decision in Modbury does not dictate the conclusion that Adeels Palace owed no relevant duty of care to the plaintiffs in the present cases. Like the claims now under consideration, the claim that was made in Modbury was for damages for personal injury suffered as a result of a criminal assault. The injured plaintiff in _Modbur_y had been attacked in a shopping centre car park at night when the lights in the car park were off. He alleged that the shopping centre proprietor was negligent in not leaving the car park lights on. A majority of the Court held that the shopping centre did not owe the plaintiff a duty to take reasonable care to prevent injury to the plaintiff resulting from the criminal behaviour of third persons on the shopping centre's land. It is important to recognise, however, that the duty alleged in Modbury was said to be founded only on the defendant's position as occupier of the land controlling the physical state of the land (there the level of its illumination). What is said in Modbury must be understood as responding to those arguments. No complaint was made that the defendant should have controlled, but did not control, access by the assailants to the land it occupied.
215. The significant factors distinguishing Adeels Palace from Modbury Triangle in respect of the existence of a duty of care related mainly to the obligations imposed on the occupier of licensed premises (at [19]), but, relevantly, also related to the occupier's capacity to control who entered and who stayed in the premises (at [18]). The defendant owner of the car park in Modbury Triangle controlled the lighting of the car park, but not access to the car park. The defendant owner of Adeels Palace conducted it as an entertainment venue and controlled who was admitted to the venue to partake of the entertainment.
216. Neither Modbury Triangle nor Adeels Palace involved a landlord who had handed over exclusive occupancy rights to a tenant.
217. Finally, in Drakulic, the NSW Court of Appeal found that the body corporate of a multi-unit residential building did not owe a duty of care to a resident who was attacked by an intruder into the insecure common property, which was insecure as a result of actions by the body corporate. Mossop M summarised the decision at [172]:
Proprietors of Strata Plan 17226 v Drakulic [2002] NSWCA 381; (2002) 55 NSWLR 659 involved a claim against the body corporate and building manager of a multi-unit residential building. The body corporate had previously installed a lock at the entry doors to the building but then disarmed the lock so that the door could not be locked. The plaintiff was aware of this. She was robbed and injured by a masked intruder inside the building on common property. The New South Wales Court of Appeal found that there was no relevant duty of care. Heydon JA who wrote the principal judgment and Mason P and Hodgson JA generally agreed. Heydon JA carefully analysed the factors referred to in Modbury relevant to whether or not a duty should be found to exist. His Honour found that the defendants lacked control in the relevant sense. He found that there had been no relevant reliance upon the defendants to ensure that the foyer door was locked. He found that the defendants did not assume any responsibility for keeping the door locked. He said that there was no special vulnerability as a source of duty as might exist between employer and employee, bailor and bailee, gaoler and prisoner. He also found that even if a high degree of foreseeability of harm might suffice for the recognition of a duty of care, as was left open by Gleeson CJ and Hayne J in Modbury, such a high degree of foreseeability was not made out on the facts.
218. In Drakulic, Heydon JA noted that the body corporate had no duty to control access to the building (distinguishing the case from those involving occupiers of licensed premises, who were separately obliged by licensing laws to control access to such premises (at [113] - [115]). At [117] Heydon JA went on to discuss what he described as "conventional occupiers' liability" as follows:
There was an attempt on behalf of the plaintiff to fit her case into the general law of occupiers' liability, which imposes a duty to take reasonable care to avoid a reasonably foreseeable risk of injury to plaintiffs arising out of the physical condition of premises. That is a disingenuous attempt to sidestep the Modbury doctrine, and it must fail. In the Modbury case Hayne J said at [106] that the alleged breach of duty concerned the "state of the premises". The absence of a locking system from a door in this case was in a sense an aspect of the physical condition of the premises, but only in the same sense as the lighting system in the Modbury case. Despite the fact that the lighting system was capable of characterisation as being part of the "state of the premises", the High Court was not prevented from declining to recognise liability by that circumstance. It did not treat the harm caused by the criminals, which the lighting system would supposedly have prevented, as being equivalent to harm caused by some defect in the surface of the car park. In argument Gleeson CJ asked, at 256:
"What is the difference between saying that a council that owns and controls a public park is bound to take care that people do not trip and break their legs and saying that the council is bound to take reasonable care that people walking through the park do not get hit over the head with a baseball bat?"
The answer is that in the second instance the harm is caused by crime. The real issue is not whether there is an aspect of the physical condition of the premises complained of, but of what type of harm that physical condition might have caused or averted. Thus at [29] Gleeson CJ said:
"The control and knowledge which form the basis of an occupier's liability in relation to the physical state or condition of land are absent when one considers the possibility of criminal behaviour on the land by a stranger. The principle involved cannot be ignored by pointing to the facts of the particular case and saying (or speculating) that the simple expedient of leaving the car park light on for an extra half hour would have prevented the attack on the first respondent."
Similarly here, the principle involved cannot be ignored by saying that the simple expedient of placing a locking mechanism on the door after May 1993 or introducing some other security system would have prevented the attack on the plaintiff. The issue is not one of the physical condition of the premises in the sense in which that is relevant in conventional occupiers' cases.
219. The plaintiff's case appears to be put (among other things) in reliance on what Heydon JA described as "conventional occupiers' liability".
"Conventional occupiers' liability" and Bryan
220. The "conventional occupiers' liability" claim in this case involves the proposition that "the state of the premises" includes the presence of a dog on the premises.
221. The plaintiff identifies Bryan as a case in which the presence of an unrestrained dog in a tavern was found to be a danger for the purposes of legislation relating to "dangers which are due to the state of the premises".
for personal injuries sustained on 26 May 2000 as a result of [the plaintiff] tripping over a dog in the bar of the Dianella Tavern. At the material time the defendants were the licensees and occupiers of the tavern, and it is claimed that they were aware of and permitted the dog to be within the bar area.
223. The relevant legislation was the Occupiers Liability Act 1985 (WA). Section 2 of that Act contained the following definition.
occupier of premises means person occupying or having control of land or other premises;
224. The trial judge dealt with the question of the occupier's liability, said to arise under s 5, as follows:
"... the care which an occupier of premises is required by reason of the occupation or control of the premises to show towards a person entering on the premises in respect of dangers which are due to the state of the premises or to anything done or omitted to be done on the premises and for which the occupier is by law responsible shall, ... be such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that the person will not suffer injury or damage by reason of any such danger."
225. In short, the defendants in Bryan, who operated a tavern in the premises concerned, were clearly the "occupiers" of the premises as defined (and not only the "occupiers" by reason of a liability to maintain or repair the premises). Blaxell DCJ found:
(a) that the dog's presence in the tavern constituted a "danger"; and
(b) that the presence of the dog in the tavern was due to something "omitted to be done on the premises and for which the occupier is by law responsible", because the defendants were aware of the dog's presence and had the power to have the dog removed.
226. His Honour did not find that the dog's presence was an aspect of "the state of the premises". Accordingly, Bryan does not stand for the proposition that the presence of a dog on premises is an aspect of "the state of the premises" in respect of which a lessor may have a duty of care under s 168(1). Furthermore, since the second leg of the occupiers' liability discussed in Bryan does not rely on "the state of the premises" but on whether the occupier had done or omitted to do anything on the premises "for which the occupier is by law responsible", the finding in Bryan has no necessary significance for liability arising from an act or omission "about the state of the premises".
227. At [117] Heydon JA in Drakulic explained that "conventional occupiers' liability":
imposes a duty to take reasonable care to avoid a reasonably foreseeable risk of injury to plaintiffs arising out of the physical condition of premises.
228. Where this kind of liability arises against a person who is not physically in occupation of premises, by reason of the person's maintenance and repair obligations, it seems to me that it is even more important to maintain clarity about the scope of the duty of care imposed on that person arising from the physical condition of the premises. This is the kind of case in which the nature of the person's control over the premises is particularly important.
229. The plaintiff also made the following submission about the defendant's responsibility as an occupier:
230. This argument can also be rejected, by reference to relevant provisions of the tenancy agreement, as follows:
Lessor to provide premises in a reasonable state at the start of the tenancy
(a) fit for habitation;
(b) in a reasonable state of repair;
(c) in a reasonable state of cleanliness; and
(d) in a reasonably secure condition.
The lessor or the tenant may change locks (at his or her own cost unless otherwise agreed) with the agreement of the other party (which will not be unreasonably withheld). The lessor or the tenant may, change locks (at his or her own cost) in an emergency without the agreement of the other party. Where a lock is changed, a copy of the key to the changed lock must be provided to the other party as soon as possible.
Lessor to make repairs
(2) Subclause (1) does not apply to premises-
(a) in respect of which the Commissioner for Housing is the lessor; and
(b) to which a periodic agreement of the kind referred to in subsection 4(5) of the Residential Tenancies Act relates until 1 July 2000.
...
Tenant to look after the premises
The tenant shall take reasonable care of the premises and keep the premises reasonably clean
(a) not intentionally or negligently damage the premises or permit such damage;
(b) notify the lessor of any damage as soon as possible; and
(c) take reasonable care of the premises and their contents, and keep them reasonably clean, having regard to their condition at the time of the commencement of the tenancy and the normal incidents of living.
(a) in substantially the same state of cleanliness, removing all his or her belongings and any other goods brought onto the premises during the duration of the Tenancy Agreement; and
(b) in substantially the same condition as the premises were in at the commencement of the Tenancy Agreement, fair wear and tear excepted.
231. In short, the defendant as the lessor is required to provide premises to the tenant "in a reasonable state of repair ... [and] in a reasonable state of cleanliness", and to "maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair". The tenant is to take reasonable care of the premises, keep the premises reasonably clean, and to leave the premises in substantially the same state of cleanliness as at the beginning of the tenancy.
232. There is no basis for saying that the lessor's repair obligations include an obligation to keep the premises tidy or to clean up after the tenant or the tenant's dogs. The defendant is not liable for "the after-effects of the presence of the dogs", so there would be nothing strange about a conclusion that the defendant is not liable in respect of the presence of the dogs on the premises either.
233. I would not rule out the possibility that the presence of a dog on premises could be treated as an aspect of the physical condition of the premises; for instance, the presence of guard dogs left by a temporarily absent occupier might give rise to conventional occupiers' liability in certain circumstances. However, where an occupier who has that status only because of maintenance and repair obligations has surrendered "exclusive possession" to a tenant, and is significantly restricted in its right to enter the premises at all during the term of the tenancy, conventional occupiers' liability would not seem to extend to liability during the term of the tenancy for, generally, what goes on in the premises, who or what is present at the premises, and the superficial, day-to-day state of the premises. A landlord "occupier" has control over a danger on the premises resulting from the landlord's failure to comply with the maintenance and repair obligations, but no control over a danger on the premises resulting, for instance, from an intruder onto the premises, from a person whom the tenant had allowed onto the premises, or from the tenant's failure to clean up a wet floor or to turn off the stove.
234. Having found that the defendant had no direct control as the lessor over either the keeping of dogs on the Roe Street premises or the behaviour of the dogs, and no control, as an occupier of the premises under s 168(6), over the presence or the behaviour of the dogs, I am satisfied that the presence of dangerous dogs on the Roe Street premises was not part of the "state of the premises" for the purposes of s 168.
235. The nature of the plaintiff's submissions about matters relevant to whether the defendant owed a duty of care suggest that the plaintiff is also asserting a duty of care which arises out of the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, and which does not depend directly on the defendant's status as an "occupier" so as to give rise to what Heydon JA described as "conventional occupier's liability".
236. The more general duty of care, if pleaded at all, is pleaded in parts of the pleadings set out at [88] to [90] above. Doing the best I can, I would summarise that asserted duty of care for present purposes as a duty to ensure that the plaintiff would not suffer injury or damage while visiting the Roe Street premises. There are in those pleadings suggestions that the duty of care might be owed more widely, but no attempt has been made to articulate the actual scope of the duty asserted in such a way as to enable a proper assessment of whether a duty having that scope is owed in the circumstances of this case.
237. However, a duty of care arising otherwise than as some kind of occupier's liability also seems to be pleaded in reliance on the provisions of the Domestic Animals Act under which the tenant is apparently liable to the plaintiff for her dog's attack on him. One of the many difficulties in dealing with this claim is that most of the matters relied on in the pleadings in support of this claim are pleaded in relation to the duty said to arise because of the tenant's liability under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act, but are discussed in submissions that are identified as relevant to s 168(2) of the Wrongs Act, which provision on its face relates not to whether there is a duty of care but whether any duty of care that is found under s 168(1) has been discharged.
238. Given the confusion between the plaintiff's pleadings and his submissions, I have dealt with the claim of a general duty of care, and the claim under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act, separately. I do not, however, consider that the plaintiff's claim would have been any more convincing if the questions of a general law duty of care had been considered in the context of s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act.
239. The matters addressed by the plaintiff are knowledge; vulnerability; assumption of responsibility; reliance; gravity of the injury; likelihood of the risk of injury; control; the burden on the defendant of dealing with the risk; and consistency with any statutory scheme. The failure to articulate the scope of the duty asserted, as noted at [236] above, creates some difficulties in assessing the significance of those matters, which are dealt with below.
240. The undisputed evidence is that the defendant knew that dangerous dogs were kept on the Roe Street premises, that dangerous dogs were likely to be dangerous, and that some of the other occupants of Roe Street were concerned about the risks posed by the dogs, especially as a result of their tendency to leave their backyard and roam the streets.
241. The plaintiff says that "the plaintiff was an infant of tender years".
242. It is not in dispute that the plaintiff, as a 6-year-old child, was "vulnerable" to attack if he found himself in the presence of uncontrolled dangerous dogs. However, there is no basis for finding that the plaintiff had any special vulnerability that distinguished him from other children, or even from most adults, so as to create any special relationship with the defendant which could give rise to an extended duty of care. If the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff to protect him from dangerous dogs kept by the defendant's tenants because of the usual vulnerabilities of young children, then it presumably owed that duty to all young members of the population. Furthermore, there is no obvious reason why the defendant should not also owe such a duty of care to the large proportion of the population who as adults remain vulnerable to assaults by dangerous dogs.
243. One of the "duties" identified by the plaintiff, at 13.8 of the pleadings quoted at [89] above, was "to ensure a pet policy that provided a safe environment for residents, visitors and guests at the property" (emphasis added). On this basis, the plaintiff appears to be suggesting that if the tenant herself had had a six-year-old child living with her in the premises, the defendant would also have had a duty of care to that child arising from the tenant's keeping of dogs on the premises.
244. The plaintiff says that the defendant had assumed responsibility for the presence of dogs on the premises by including Attachment C in the tenancy agreement and by making the Pets Policy, because it had "specifically retained for itself the right and responsibility of determining in accordance with the tenancy agreement, Policy and the Domestic Animals Act the keeping of dangerous and vicious animals on its premises".
247. I agree that the plaintiff should have been able to expect to be safe and free of the danger of a vicious attack by a dangerous dog. Under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act, he clearly was, if not entitled to that safety and freedom, at least entitled to compensation for any loss arising from such an attack - but that entitlement arose against the keeper of the dog.
248. However, I do not agree that the plaintiff was entitled to rely on the defendant, a lessor with no control over the day-to-day activities of its tenants, to keep him safe from a vicious dog attack, any more than he was entitled to rely on the defendant to protect him from any of the other dangers arising from the activities of the tenant or the state in which she kept the leased premises, or to rely on any other landlord to protect him from the activities of that landlord's tenants.
249. The plaintiff makes the following submissions:
250. I do not disagree with the plaintiff's second submission, and the first submission may well be correct. However, while it was within the law, and not excluded by the terms of the tenancy agreement, for the dogs to be kept in the tenant's house, the defendant's knowledge about the propensities of dangerous dogs did not oblige it to second-guess the tenant's rights under the Domestic Animals Act.
252. The defendant did know that the tenant kept two dangerous dogs on the premises, but I have found that there was no need for the tenant to have the defendant's written permission to keep the dogs.
253. The plaintiff's claim about what is set out in "the studies" may well be correct, but there is no evidence of "the studies" before me. However, even assuming that the defendant was aware of "the studies", and accepting that the defendant also knew that there had been a number of complaints about dogs escaping from the Roe Street premises and roaming the streets, the defendant also knew that DAS was the government agency responsible for enforcing the Domestic Animals Act.
254. In relation to the defendant's knowledge, the evidence before me was that the defendant was aware of complaints about the tenant's dogs escaping the Roe Street premises, but not that the defendant had any knowledge that the dogs posed any particular threat while they were confined within the tenant's premises (see [59] - [61] above).
255. The likelihood of the risk of injury as a result of the presence and activities of the dogs may well have been high. However, that was not a fact known only to the defendant, and it was not a fact that the defendant could reasonably have addressed through its control over the tenancy, if the tenant was keeping the dogs in the premises in accordance with the Domestic Animals Act.
256. The plaintiff's submissions about the defendant's capacity to control the matters relevant to the asserted duty of care are summarised as follows:
257. I have found, at [194] above, that the defendant did have some capacity under the Pets Policy to deal with some of the issues arising in relation to the keeping of troublesome pets but, at [196] above, that the defendant did not have a right to veto the keeping of pets (even dangerous dogs as such) on the Roe Street premises, and had no more than the right to apply to ACAT for an order evicting a tenant for a breach of the tenancy agreement if any such breach could be identified.
Burden of dealing with risk; inconsistency of duty with any statutory scheme
258. In submissions dated 17 June 2015, the plaintiff submitted that the burden of dealing with the risk as to which the defendant was said to owe a duty of care could have been easily discharged, as follows:
259. In submissions dated 20 July 2015, the plaintiff said:
260. The references to "page 54/55 of exhibit J" appear to be to Housing ACT's letter to the tenant referred to at [56] above.
261. Having identified the kinds of actions that, the plaintiff says, would have discharged the defendant's duty of care, the plaintiff makes the following submission about the implications of such an approach for the defendant's statutory obligations as a provider of "social" housing:
262. I note also the plaintiff's submissions in reliance on Karatjas, which referred to the comments of Nettle J at [26] and [36] as follows:
26 Chomentowski was decided when reasonable foreseeability was still conceived of as the principal criterion of duty. Later, there was a period in which the High Court focused greater attention on what Brennan J described in Hawkins v Clayton as the 'Delphic criterion' of proximity. Later still, the High Court discarded the idea of proximity as a principle. Now, according to more recent pronouncements, the test is 'whether it is reasonable to require a person to have in contemplation the risk of injury that has eventuated'. In turn, that entails the application of what different members of the High Court have variously described as 'principle and policy', 'the totality of the relationship between the parties', a 'fact-value complex', and 'questions of fairness, policy, practicality, proportion, expense and justice'. At the same time, a majority of the High Court have rejected the idea that those tests are synonymous with the English criteria of 'fair, and just and reasonable', albeit recognising that they may lead to the same result.
...
36 Of course, there is a difference. In Brodribb, there was a contractual relationship between the principal and the contractor. In a case like this, where the principal retains a contractor and the contractor engages the employees, there is no contract between the principal and the injured employee. But the lack of a contract is not determinative. Liability in negligence turns on foreseeability and proximity, the total relationship between the parties and questions of fairness, policy, practicality, proportion, expense and justice. Contract aside, the question is whether it is reasonable to require the principal to have in contemplation the risk of injury to the worker which eventuates. Hence, as English shows, where a principal retains a contractor who engages employees, but the principal retains control over some aspect of the work, it may be reasonable for the principal to have in contemplation the risk of injury to the contractor's employee arising out of that aspect of the work.
(citations omitted)
263. Those submissions seem to be to the following effect:
(a) first that it is appropriate to ask whether it was reasonable:
for Housing to 'have in contemplation the risk of injury that has eventuated' by looking at:
i. Principle and policy
ii. The totality of the relationship between the parties
iii. Questions of fairness, policy, practicality, proportion, expense and justice.
(b) secondly, that the plaintiff relies on Nettle J's comments that lack of a contract is not determinative, and that:
Liability in negligence turns on foreseeability and proximity, the total relationship between the parties and questions of fairness, practicality, proportion expense and justice.
264. No effort was made, however, to explain the significance of these propositions in the current case. In particular I note that there has been no reliance by the defendant on the lack of a contract with the plaintiff.
265. The first thing to be said about the plaintiff's submissions is that it is hard to work out exactly what the plaintiff says the defendant should have done (ie the nature of the burden imposed) and it is also hard to be sure what the plaintiff means to say about the impact of that burden.
266. The plaintiff's suggested directions go beyond the DAS requirement (quoted at [259] above) that "the dogs must remain secured within your premises" (presumably to protect members of the public from encountering dogs outside the premises), and extend to securing the dogs when "persons visit the premises", but do not require the dogs to be secured when other people, for instance other occupants, are in the premises. This may be inconsistent with the plaintiff's pleading (at [89] above) about a duty of care owed to, among others, occupants of the premises.
267. In summary, however, what the plaintiff seems to be saying is that the defendant should have devised and implemented a detailed policy for the management of pet animals (or, at least, dangerous dogs) kept, or sought to be kept, in its tenanted properties, including assessing individual dogs for their suitability to live in such properties, giving directions to tenants about how dogs were to be controlled, and enforcing such directions by seeking compliance orders or eviction orders.
268. This regime would presumably apply in addition to the generally applicable provisions of the Domestic Animals Act, but would be rather stricter in its operation. Furthermore, it would require the defendant to acquire a level of expertise in relation to domestic dogs (or domestic animals more generally) that might well exceed the expertise available even to DAS in implementing the Domestic Animals Act; this expertise would be required if the defendant was to assess individual dogs for permission to occupy the defendant's properties, a function that does not seem to be currently provided for in the registration or licensing processes (see s 25 of the Domestic Animals Act). Significantly, it could involve the defendant excluding from its premises dogs that, subject to registration and similar requirements, were permitted under the Domestic Animals Act to be kept in other residential premises. Even if these powers were to be exercised by officers of Housing ACT who were also authorised to perform functions under the Domestic Animals Act (at [85] above), they would necessarily be different and more extensive powers.
269. Furthermore, these are not powers that the defendant could have conferred on itself or acquired by its own actions. They are powers that would need to have been conferred, directly or indirectly, by the legislature.
270. Even if such powers might have been conferred, this would have imposed a significant burden on the defendant, and would involve an unusual and, one might think, wasteful and otherwise undesirable duplication of responsibilities between a government agency whose core business was public housing and another government agency whose core business was regulating the keeping of domestic animals in the ACT (including, importantly, implementing the policy framework provided by the legislature).
271. The significance of the defendant's obligation to provide housing to disadvantaged people was considered by Mossop M in Harris at [179] to [183]. His Honour concluded that Harris was not a case "where the imposition of a duty on the defendant would be inconsistent with a statutory obligation to other persons" (citing Sullivan v Moody at [60]), but that the relevant legislation "does not clearly support the existence of an extended duty of care". His Honour referred to s 110 of the Wrongs Act (at [99] above), reviewed a number of statistics about the defendant's responsibility (for instance, that in the 2007-2008 financial year, the defendant had managed 11,654 dwellings accommodating 23,168 people), and said:
272. As in Harris, it is the case here that the defendant "has a substantial responsibility to provide housing to a large number of disadvantaged people". In other ways, however, the duty proposed by the plaintiff in this case would potentially have an even greater impact on the operations of the defendant than that proposed in Harris.
273. If the extended duty of care proposed by the plaintiff in this case exists, it would seem to be owed not only to other public housing tenants but to all, or a significant sub-set, of the much larger group consisting of residents of, and visitors to, the ACT (that is, the group consisting of every person, public housing tenant or not, who might enter premises let by the defendant, and who might be vulnerable to being injured by a dangerous dog kept on the premises, and arguably to any person who might, in a public place, come across a dangerous dog kept in premises let by the defendant). Furthermore, such a duty would seem also be owed by every other landlord in the ACT.
274. The way in which the plaintiff suggests that the defendant could discharge the burden imposed by the proposed duty of care seems to involve, in the last resort, terminating a tenant's tenancy, although the plaintiff's submissions shy away from identifying this as the ultimate sanction. That suggestion raises several further issues.
275. Mossop M in Harris at [187] noted that what was reasonable for the Commissioner was affected by various matters, saying:
(a) John had a lease from the defendant;
(b) unless John vacated the property, the defendant could only obtain possession of his unit by a termination and possession order granted by the Residential Tenancy Tribunal or, after 2 February 2009, an order of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal: Residential Tenancies Act 1997 s 36;
(c) there are limited grounds upon which a landlord may terminate a lease, which are not without their complexities: Residential Tenancies Act 1997 ss 47-51; Devenport v Commissioner for Housing in the ACT and Residential Tenancies Tribunal [2007] ACTSC 30; (2007) 210 FLR 325; Faull v Commissioner for Social Housing for the ACT and Residential Tenancies Tribunal [2013] ACTSC 121;
(d) the defendant was bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth);
(e) the defendant was bound by the Human Rights Act 2004 which, from 1 January 2009, included provisions which permitted orders to be made against Territory authorities and provided that John had "the right ... not to have his ... privacy [or] home ... interfered with unlawfully or arbitrarily":
276. His Honour's list of the issues arising if the Commissioner sought to interfere with the activities of a tenant in the leased premises is also relevant here, in relation to the extent to which the defendant could seek to control the tenant's lawful activities in her own home.
277. First, the defendant might find itself needing to terminate the tenancy of a tenant who has in fact complied with all statutory obligations in relation to keeping dangerous dogs (which do not seem to be as onerous as those suggested by the plaintiff); this might conflict with its statutory obligations to provide social housing (at [73] to [75] above).
278. As noted at [79] to [82] above, terminating the tenant's tenancy would not necessarily be straightforward. Interference in the way in which the tenant kept her dogs within the premises might have conflicted with the tenant's right under the lease to exclusive possession of the property (standard clause 53) and to the exclusion of the defendant except as provided in standard clauses 75 to 82, or with the defendant's obligations under the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), s 12 of which confers on the tenant a right not to have her privacy or home interfered with unlawfully or arbitrarily.
279. Next, as a matter of more practical significance, terminating the tenancy of a tenant whose keeping of dangerous dogs is otherwise in compliance with the laws relating to such animals would presumably mean that the tenant would have to find accommodation in other premises, or would become homeless. Neither alternative would enhance the safety of the public generally, and might even diminish that safety further - although it might enhance the safety of those members of the public who visit the occupants of public housing, while they are doing so. However, if the defendant owes a duty of care arising from its asserted capacity to control the keeping of dogs in public housing, it is possible that the duty would extend to the results of exercising that capacity: for instance, would the defendant also have owed the duty of care proposed by the plaintiff if the plaintiff had been injured by a dog kept in private housing that had previously been evicted, with its keeper, from public housing?
280. There is a further problem with the plaintiff's submissions on this topic. Although the plaintiff refers to the defendant giving the tenant 14 days to (among other things) keep the dangerous dogs in cages or on a secure leash when persons visit the premises, keeping a dog in a cage or on a secure leash is not a matter that can be achieved once and for all - at the end of the 14 days, a tenant might put a dog in a cage or on a leash for an inspection, but this provides no guarantee that the dog will be in the cage or on a leash when the next visitor arrives. The defendant could no more control the day-to-day restraint of dogs kept in leased premises than the defendants in Modbury Triangle and Drakulic could have controlled the activities of criminals in their premises. The position is of course different in relation to a day-to-day occupier of premises, who can reasonably be expected to control dogs kept in the premises by that occupier.
281. In the end, so long as it remains within the law for a public housing tenant to keep a dangerous dog within the premises concerned, there is little that the defendant can do to ensure that visitors (or indeed occupants) of such premises, or even a sub-class of particularly vulnerable visitors or occupants, are not at risk of encountering such a dog. That is, it would be impossible for the defendant to eliminate the risk; the burden of minimising the risk in the manner suggested by the plaintiff would be substantial; and any attempt by the defendant to achieve that would involve an incoherent duplication of expertise and responsibilities within the ACT government.
282. Having considered all the matters said by the plaintiff to indicate that the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, I am satisfied that no duty of the kind asserted by the plaintiff existed. The fundamental problems faced by the plaintiff in asserting the duty of care are that the defendant did not have the capacity to control the risk posed by the presence of dangerous dogs on premises leased by the defendant, and that the arrangements that would be required for the defendant to obtain that control would lead to incoherence in the law, by imposing, in respect of a matter not directly relating to the incidents of residential tenancies, a different duty on the defendant from the duties imposed on other lessors in the ACT, and by requiring the defendant to implement a different and more stringent regime for the control of dangerous dogs than is applied to the control of dangerous dogs kept in the ACT generally by the relevant legislation (the Domestic Animals Act) and by the primary regulatory authority, DAS.
283. If a duty of care was owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, however, it would only have imposed on the defendant an obligation to take "reasonable steps" to address the risk arising from the tenant's keeping of dangerous dogs on the Roe Street premises (Harris at [186]).
284. I have already rejected the suggestion that "reasonable steps" would have involved the establishment and implementation of a separate or additional regulatory scheme relating to the keeping of dangerous dogs in public housing.
285. In terms of the steps that were, under the current arrangements, reasonably available to the defendant to address the identified risk, the evidence is that complaints made to the defendant were either acted on to the extent of the defendant's powers, or passed on to DAS, within a reasonable time. The evidence does not suggest that the defendant failed to respond to any particular complaint or concern brought to its attention in respect of the tenant's dogs by taking appropriate action within its area of responsibility (that action being, in many cases, passing on the complaints and concerns to DAS).
286. The evidence also is that between 29 May 2008 (when the defendant contacted the tenant reminding her about her obligations in relation to the keeping of the dogs) and 7 October 2010 (when the plaintiff was attacked), the records show there were:
(a) one complaint to DAS about a roaming dog from the Roe Street premises (November 2008), which was followed up by DAS officers who saw no dogs when they arrived in Roe Street, but warned the occupants of the premises about letting dogs roam the streets (at [58] above);
(b) one general complaint to Housing ACT about the behaviour of the dogs (29 July 2009), which was followed up, and produced the outcome that the tenant assured Housing ACT staff that the dogs were suitably confined (at [59] to [61] above);
(c) one complaint to DAS (17 May 2010) of an immediate problem with the dogs (at [62] above), which was followed up, and produced the outcome that the dogs were seized, fencing and other security was checked, the dogs were de-sexed, and the tenant was permitted to take her dogs back on agreeing to the conditions as set out at [64] above; and
(d) one complaint to Housing ACT (18 May 2010) about the incident reported to DAS the previous day (at [65] above).
When they arrived at the Roe Street address the occupant, Helen, opened the door. Two dogs were standing next to her; they were barking and seemed to be excited. [Jack] and the other visitors then waited at the door while Helen put the dogs in the backyard, before she let the visitors into the house.
Jack was in the lounge room with the adults when Nicki left the lounge room through a door leading to the kitchen. When she opened the door to the kitchen, Jack said:
the dogs came storming out... one of them ran past me 'cause they missed me, and then the other one grabbed my leg.
288. That is, the dogs were confined within the tenant's premises and, indeed, separated from the tenant's visitors by a door. The attack would not have happened if the dogs had been confined in an adequate cage in the backyard, and it would not have happened if the person who took the plaintiff to the premises had not opened the door behind which the dogs were confined. There was nothing that the defendant could reasonably have done, within the scope of the powers that I have found it possessed, to prevent the attack on the plaintiff. Indeed there is nothing that the defendant could have done to prevent that attack, even within the scope of the obligations suggested by the plaintiff, except to the extent that the obligation was framed as an unqualified obligation to exclude dangerous dogs from public housing.
289. There is no basis for finding that the defendant failed to take such steps as were reasonable to discharge any duty that the defendant as the occupier under s 168 of the Wrongs Act owed to the plaintiff. The defendant did not breach any duty that it owed to the plaintiff in that capacity.
290. However, if I had found that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty otherwise than purely as an "occupier" of the Roe Street premises (presumably a duty in its capacity as the manager of public housing in the ACT), being a duty that required it to implement its own separate scheme regulating the keeping of dogs in public housing or excluding all dogs, or dangerous dogs, from such housing, then I would have been obliged to find that the defendant had breached that duty of care.
291. Since I have found that the defendant did not, negligently or otherwise, fail to discharge any duty of care that it owed to the plaintiff as an occupier of the Roe Street premises, the question of causation does not arise.
292. I do not see any point in attempting to make a finding about causation in the hypothetical situation of a finding that the defendant did owe such a duty of care, and a finding that the reasonable steps required to discharge that duty of care had not been taken by the defendant. This is, to a large extent, because the form of the plaintiff's submissions about the nature of the duty of care and the reasonable steps it would have required of the defendant involve so many incompletely formulated alternatives and so many hypothetical propositions that it is impossible to describe properly the particular hypothetical circumstances in which causation would have to have been assessed.
293. However, since there is very little dispute about the evidence in this matter, I do not consider that there would be any difficulty in determining the question of causation if at some stage in the future different findings are made about the nature of any duty owed to the plaintiff and the actions the defendant would have been obliged to take to discharge that duty.
294. In the current case, the direct cause of the attack on the plaintiff was not the presence of the dogs on the Roe Street premises, but the tenant's failure to confine them effectively when her visitors (including the plaintiff) arrived. An argument to the effect that the defendant should have excluded the dogs from the premises because there was a risk that the tenant might be negligent in confining them within the house would be equivalent to arguing that the defendant was obliged to regulate and monitor all the things that the tenant could have done in her premises that might have created a risk for visitors to her house.
295. On that basis, the question posed in this case would be similar to that posed in Harris, which also involved the nature and extent of the defendant's obligation to monitor and constrain the presence of its tenant "John", to ensure that his conduct did not damage others. In that case, Mossop M found that the defendant did not owe a duty to its other tenants to regulate John's conduct, although those tenants were exposed to proximity to John by their status as the defendant's tenants, and by the defendant's decisions about which premises to allocate to them and to John (see [209] - [210] above). Furthermore, in this case, the plaintiff was not exposed to the tenant's conduct by any actions of the defendant, but by the actions of the friends who had taken him there. The decision in Harris does not provide any support for a proposition that the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff from the actions of the tenant.
296. For the reasons given above, the defendant owed no duty of care to the plaintiff, arising from "conventional occupiers' liability" for the state of the Roe Street premises, to protect him from the risk of attack by a dangerous dog kept in those premises.
297. Nor have I been able to identify any other duty of care owed by the defendant to protect the plaintiff from the risk of attack by a dangerous dog kept in premises leased by the defendant to a tenant, but if such a duty did exist, the plaintiff has not established that the defendant negligently failed to discharge that duty.
298. Accordingly, the defendant is not liable to the plaintiff under or by reference to the Wrongs Act for the injury the plaintiff suffered as a result of being attacked by a dog on the Roe Street premises.
299. The plaintiff also seeks to rely on the provisions of the Domestic Animals Act directly to assert the defendant's liability to compensate the plaintiff for the consequences of the dog attack. This claim was first raised at the hearing, and the defendant correctly pointed out that it had not been pleaded.
300. The plaintiff subsequently sought to amend the statement of claim to include relevant pleadings, to which the defendant objected on the grounds that the pleadings disclosed no reasonable cause of action and were embarrassing. The question whether the draft pleadings disclosed a reasonable cause of action, and the question whether the claim could be made out, largely raised the same issues, and accordingly I have considered those issues together.
301. The relevant provision of the Domestic Animals Act (as at 7 October 2010) was as follows:
(a) a dog attacks or harasses a person and the person suffers personal injury or property damage because of the attack or harassment; or
(b) a dog attacks or harasses an animal and the animal dies or is injured because of the attack or harassment.
(2) The keeper of the dog is liable to pay to the person, or the owner of the animal, compensation for any loss or expense because of the attack or harassment.
(a) whether or not a prosecution for an offence against this Act has been brought against the keeper of the dog in relation to the attack or harassment; and
(b) if a prosecution for an offence against this Act has been brought against the keeper - even if the keeper has been acquitted of the offence.
(4) In a proceeding for compensation under this section for loss or expense by a person (the plaintiff) for personal injury or property damage, it is a defence for the defendant to prove that -
(a) the attack or harassment happened to the plaintiff while the plaintiff was, without reasonable excuse, on premises occupied by the defendant; or
(b) the plaintiff failed to take reasonable care for his or her own safety; or
(5) In a proceeding for compensation under this section for the death or injury of an animal, it is a defence for the defendant to prove that the attack or harassment happened to the animal while it was on premises occupied by the defendant or that the animal had provoked the dog.
(6) This section does not affect any right that a person has to recover damages or compensation apart from this section.
302. The Dictionary to the Domestic Animals Act contains the following relevant definitions:
keeper means -
(a) for a registered dog - the registered keeper of the dog; or
(b) for another animal - the owner of the animal.
register means the register kept by the registrar under section 5.
registered keeper, of a dog, means the person stated in the register as a keeper of the dog.
303. It does not appear to be in dispute that the tenant was the registered keeper of the dog concerned, or that the tenant is liable to the plaintiff under s 55. However, as noted at [4] above, the plaintiff sees no point in taking action against the tenant.
304. The plaintiff seeks to add the following material to the statement of claim:
19A. The obligations of strict liability of Helen Hines as keeper of the Dogs extended to the defendant whilst the Dogs were on the property.
20A. The obligations of the defendant and the keeper of the dogs were coextensive and concurrent by reason of the knowledge and control of the defendant,
Particulars
(a) Complaints to the defendant dated 7 February 2005, 8 February 2005, 12 September 2005, 16 August 2006, 23 October 2006, 14 April 2008, 29 July 2009, 18 May 2009.
21A. The defendant was vicariously responsible to the plaintiff for the strict liability of Helen Hines as keeper of the Dogs whilst the Dogs were on the property with the knowledge and control of the defendant.
22A. By reason of the strict liability imposed on Helen Hines as the keeper of the Dogs, the defendant had a special duty to the plaintiff whilst the Dogs were on the property which required the defendant to ensure that reasonable care was taken to all persons coming onto the property.
Particulars
(a) Vulnerability
i. The plaintiff was an infant of tender years.
(b) Control
iii, The defendant failed to enforce the terms of the tenancy agreement.
(d) Reliance
(g) The burden on the occupier of removing the danger or protecting the person
(a) that the defendant, as well as the tenant, was an occupier of the premises in which the dogs were kept;
(b) that the defendant was aware that the dogs were kept in the premises;
(c) therefore, that the defendant is, under s 55(2) of the Domestic Animals Act, jointly liable with the tenant as a keeper of the dogs; and
(d) therefore, that the defendant is liable under s 55(2) to pay compensation to the plaintiff for loss or expense suffered as a result of the attack on the plaintiff.
306. The plaintiff "explains" the assertion that the defendant is "jointly liable with the tenant as a keeper of the dog" by asserting that because the dog was kept in the premises with the knowledge of the defendant, the defendant has a "co-extensive duty" and a resulting "concurrent liability" under the Domestic Animals Act. This is a clear case of question-begging - the plaintiff is saying that the defendant must be a keeper of the dogs because it is jointly liable with the tenant under the Domestic Animals Act, but the conclusion that the defendant is liable under that Act is the very proposition the plaintiff seeks to establish by showing that the defendant is a keeper of the dog.
307. In submissions dated 16 July 2015, the plaintiff says:
There is a coextensive duty of the defendant under the Domestic Animals Act or alternatively the defendant is vicariously liable for the strict liability breach of the tenant as keeper of the dangerous dogs who attacked the plaintiff. For the Court to recognise this duty it would have to find a "new" relationship of vicarious reliability [sic] or non-delegable ... personal duty of care as was dissed [sic] in New South Wales v Lefore [sic] (2003) ACA 4 [sic] see paras 101, 102, 106, 123, 127, 128 and 129.
308. In New South Wales v Lepore [2003] HCA 4; 212 CLR 511 (Lepore), Gaudron J said:
...
Vicarious liability: considerations of policy and principle
309. The plaintiff is correct to concede that in order to find the defendant liable under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act, I would need to find some kind of new duty imposed on the defendant by a "new relationship", or find a "non-delegable duty of care" imposed on the defendant.
310. The plaintiff does not explain the basis on which the material quoted from Lepore would support a finding that the defendant is vicariously liable for the tenant's actions in her capacity as the keeper of the dog. Nor is there any basis that I can see for finding that there is a personal, non-delegable duty of care owed by the defendant to visitors to its tenanted premises.
311. The defendant's role is to provide "social housing". Except to the extent that it is liable for the state of its tenanted premises as addressed in s 168 of the Wrongs Act, it does not have a role of providing safe opportunities for children (or people in general, for that matter) to visit the residents of such housing, and it is not apparently responsible for the performance of any such role by the tenant or any of its other tenants.
312. The defendant has no responsibility in relation to the tenant's liability under s 55, either vicariously or as an authority that owed a non-delegable duty of care to the plaintiff.
313. The plaintiff's argument in reliance on the Domestic Animals Act is expanded in later submissions as follows:
The defendant had contractually agreed with Hines in respect of pets at the premises.
It accepted sole responsibility for making a judgment as to dogs on its premises. It had a statutory role to pursue. (See s6 of the Housing Assistance Act 2007).
Ms Hines was a keeper of the dog at the premises. S55(2) of Domestic Animals Act 2000 provides liability to pay a person compensation for loss or expenses because of attack. S55(6) also provides:
"this section does not affect any right that a person has to recover damages or compensation apart from this section".
Further s50(1) and s50(2) provides [sic] for offences by the carer and keeper. S50(2) provides:
"The keeper of the dog commits an offence if the dog attacks or harasses a person or animal when it is not with a carer. Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units."
The offences created by s50 are offences of strict liability (Leichardt Municipal Council v Hunter [2013] NSWCCA 87. The statutory right to compensation against the keeper of the dog Ms Hines pursuant to is one of strict liability.
(a) The defendant had not "contractually agreed" with the tenant in respect of pets under the tenancy agreement (see [172] above); if there was another contract between the defendant and the tenant, it has not been identified.
(b) The defendant had not accepted sole responsibility for anything to do with dogs on its premises.
(c) The fact that offences under the Domestic Animals Act may be offences of strict liability does not imply that the liability to pay compensation is also "strict liability" (although this may independently be the position), but this is anyway irrelevant to the question of who bears to that liability.
(d) It is not correct to say that the keeping of the dogs at the premises was either with the permission of the defendant or prohibited (see [172] above).
(e) The claim that "both parties had interests and liabilities at stake by the presence of the dogs at the property", and the following submissions, again, beg the question, in asserting that which is sought to be proved as part of the proof.
315. The plaintiff relies among other things on s 45 of the Domestic Animals Act, which is as follows:
(1) A carer must not be on private premises with a dog that is not restrained by a leash unless the person has the consent of the occupier of the premises.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the carer is on premises occupied by the keeper of the dog.
(3) The keeper of a dog must not be on private premises with a dog that is not restrained by a leash unless the keeper has the consent of the occupier of the premises.
(4) Subsection (3) does not apply if the keeper is on premises occupied by a carer of the dog.
(5) The keeper of a dog commits an offence if the dog is on private premises and is not with a carer, unless the keeper has the consent of the occupier of the premises.
(6) In a prosecution for an offence against subsection (1), (3) or (5), it is evidence that the occupier of premises did not consent if an authorised person gives evidence that, at the time of the offence, the occupier told the authorised person that the occupier did not consent.
(7) In a prosecution for an offence against subsection (1), (3) or (5), it is a defence if the defendant proves that the defendant took reasonable steps to prevent a contravention of the subsection.
316. The basis on which the defendant can be identified as an occupier of the premises for the purposes of this definition is not explained; certainly this does not seem to flow from the fact that the defendant may be an occupier under the Wrongs Act to the extent that it has repair and maintenance obligations in respect of the premises, or indeed to any other extent.
317. In the Dictionary to the Domestic Animals Act, "occupier" is defined as including "a person who is, or who is reasonably believed to be, in charge of the premises". For the purposes of a provision under which a dog on private premises must be restrained by a leash except with the consent of the occupier, the occupier would seem to be a person who is on the premises and, at the time of the dog's presence, in a position to give or withhold consent to the unleashing of the dog. In particular, the definition appears to contemplate that the carer or keeper of a visiting dog should be able to assess whether a particular person on the premises is capable of giving consent for the purposes of s 45.
318. In any case, s 45 is irrelevant in the current case because, although ss 45(1) and (3) do provide for dogs on private premises to be restrained unless the occupier consents to them being on the premises and unrestrained, by ss 45(2) and (4) the requirement for the occupier's consent does not apply if the premises are occupied by the keeper or carer of the dog. Thus, in this case, even if the defendant were relevantly an occupier, its consent would not in my view be required for the keeper of the dog to have her own dogs unrestrained on the leased premises of which she was an occupier.
319. Neither the defendant's repair and maintenance obligations in relation to the premises, nor anything that I can find in the Domestic Animals Act, seems to establish that the defendant, whether as the "occupier" under s 168 of the Wrongs Act or as the lessor of the Roe Street premises, was a "keeper" of the dogs kept on the premises, whether jointly with the tenant or otherwise.
320. There is no suggestion that the defendant was either a registered keeper or an owner of the dogs. The definition of "keeper" does not refer to occupiers of the premises in which the dog is kept, and does not give any other basis for identifying the defendant as a keeper of the dogs.
Conclusions - liability under Domestic Animals Act
321. In summary, I can see no basis for accepting that at law the defendant was a "keeper" of the dog, and in the absence of any reference by the plaintiff to some relevant legal principle or legislative provision, I can see no basis for accepting that the defendant shared any kind of liability under the Domestic Animals Act with the keeper of the dog.
322. Accordingly, the claim sought to be made by the plaintiff in amendments to the statement of claim must fail. Since that claim fails simply by reference to the provisions of the Domestic Animals Act (rather than because of any particular deficiency in the evidence), it is appropriate to deal with it by concluding that the proposed amendments to the statement of claim disclose no reasonable cause of action, and therefore refusing leave to plead the new claim by adding paragraphs [19A], [20A], [21A] and [22A] (at [304] above).
323. Counsel for the plaintiff advised that the parties had agreed that any damages award made to the plaintiff should be in the amount of $200,000, plus fund management costs to be advised.
Other matters - keeping of dangerous dogs on domestic premises
324. It is clear from the evidence summarised at [71] above that both Housing ACT and DAS were aware that the tenant's dogs were a matter of concern, and had made efforts over the years to induce the tenant to control them more effectively.
325. The real problem for the community seems to be that ACT law permits "dangerous dogs" to be kept on domestic premises, subject to requirements for them to be specially licensed as dangerous dogs, for their yards to be secured, and so on.
326. There is scope for imposing licence conditions requiring dangerous dogs to be confined to specified premises (s 26), and there are requirements that dangerous dogs be muzzled in public places, and that such dogs not be allowed in public places without someone in charge of them (s 27), but the sanctions for breaches of those requirements are relatively insignificant. For instance, the offence of allowing a dangerous dog to be in a public place without a muzzle, or without a person in charge, carries a maximum penalty for the carer or keeper of the dog of a fine of 10 penalty units (currently $1,500)
327. As well, the legislation suggests that even where there is an attack or harassment, the dog is only at risk of destruction if the dog's keeper is at fault in a way that invokes criminal liability, and even in such a case, the dog may be spared destruction if the court is satisfied that there are special circumstances that justify not ordering the destruction of the dog - in which case the court must order that the dog and its keeper complete an approved course in behavioural or socialisation training for the dog (ss 50(5) and 50A(4) and (5)).
328. The plaintiff had a very frightening experience in the Roe Street premises, and suffered serious injuries which continue to affect him today. It would be entirely appropriate (as provided for by s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act) for him to be compensated for the injuries he has suffered through the fault of others. However the fact that, while she would clearly be liable to him under s 55 of the Domestic Animals Act, the tenant would apparently not be able to satisfy any judgment against her in the plaintiff's favour does not mean that the defendant is the appropriate source of that compensation.
329. It may be that the legislature, or the community as a whole, does not have an appetite for imposing limits on the keeping of dangerous dogs sufficient to prevent the kind of attack suffered by the plaintiff. As an alternative approach, however, it may be that the cost of licensing a dangerous dog, like the cost of registering a motor vehicle, should include a contribution to an insurance scheme which could provide compensation to people like the plaintiff who suffer from the actions of dangerous dogs which have been lawfully kept in the ACT.
I certify that the preceding three-hundred and thirty [330] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of her Honour Justice Penfold.
Hartigan
Commissioner for Social Housing in the ACT [2017] ACTSC 100
(1945) 70 CLR 256
(2002) 55 NSWLR 659
(2007) 210 FLR 325
The keeping of the dogs at the premises was with the permission of the defendant. Otherwise the keeping of the dogs was prohibited on the defendant's leased premises.
Further s45(1) to (3) provides for dogs on private premises to be restrained "unless the person has the consent of the occupier of the premises".
The defendant and its tenants had mutual rights and duties as to dogs on the property. Their liabilities were concurrent when the dog was on the property: the defendant having accepted the sole responsibility for permitting the dog and the tenant as the keeper. The plaintiff is able to assert the right to compensation pursuant to s55 of the Domestic Animals Act against the keeper and also against the defendant in negligence.
Both parties had interests and liabilities at stake by the presence of the dogs at the property. They both were exposed to and shared the same risk; a dog attack on the property. Both have responsibilities to protect persons from dog attach [sic] causing serious injury. Both parties [sic] defaults were concurrent and successive causes of the plaintiff's loss and damage.