54 S.C. 481 | S.C. | 1899
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
These actions were to recover damages for the negligent running over and killing of plaintiffs’ dogs by the cars of the defendant company. The appeals are from an order sustaining a demurrer in each case, that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to* constitute a cause of action, in that there is not such property in dogs that a railroad company is liable for killing upon its track. The only question presented is whether this' ruling was’error.
There is no doubt that by the common law one may have such property in a dog as the law will protect by a civil action. Blackstone said: “As to these animals, which do not serve for food and which, therefore, the law holds to have no intrinsic value, as dogs of all sorts, and other creatures kept for whim and pleasure, though a man may have a base property therein and maintain a civil action for the loss of them, yet they are not of such estimation as that the crime of stealing them amounts to larceny.” 4 Comm., 235. Kent says: “Animals ferae naturae, so long as they are reclaimed by the art and power of man are also* the subject of a qualified property; but when they are abandoned, or escape, and return to their natural liberty and ferocity,
The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.