Authored by Jason Hudson and Jessica Blunden
In April 2026, the High Court held that a dog owner was not liable for a fractured ankle allegedly caused by his dog's bite. The dog bite caused only two puncture wounds to the claimant's ankle, and the fracture resulted from the claimant's own misstep after the dog had been secured. This created a new intervening act that broke the chain of legal causation.
It was common cause that the dog escaped from the owner's property and bit the claimant, leaving two bite marks on his ankle. The claimant's pleaded case was that the dog bite itself caused the fracture. However, during cross-examination, the claimant conceded that it was not the bite but a misstep from the sidewalk that caused his ankle injury.
Despite this concession, the trial court found in favour of the claimant on the basis that the dog's attack initiated a chain of events, eventually leading to his fall. The appeal court held that this was impermissible. A party may not plead one case and then seek to establish a different case at trial. The trial court had ventured beyond the claimant's pleaded case and pronounced on a cause of action only introduced during closing argument.
On the question of a new intervening act, the court noted that the dog owner testified that he had chased his dog back into his property before the claimant fell. The claimant then stepped awkwardly onto the edge of a drain and fell, fracturing his ankle. Because the dog was no longer in the vicinity when the misstep occurred, the court held that the claimant's fall was a new intervening act that broke the chain of causation between the dog bite and the ankle fracture.
The court also noted several evidential shortcomings in the claimant's case. No medical or expert evidence was tendered to demonstrate that the bite could have fractured the ankle. The claimant's initial affidavit, made eight days after the incident, did not mention a fractured ankle at all. The alleged fracture was only formally raised about three years later when a claim for damages was brought by the claimant.
The appeal was upheld, and the claimant was ordered to pay the costs of the appeal.
This judgment is a reminder that claimants are bound by their pleaded cases. Intervening acts break the chain of causation, and the original wrongdoer will not be held liable for the consequences of that intervening act.