George M. Heymann and Matthew J. Kaiser
For more than a decade, New York has been a “unique outlier” among the states, rejecting recovery of damages for personal injuries sustained by a domestic animal on the theory of negligence. See Doerr v. Goldsmith, 25 N.Y.3d 1114, 1149 (2015) (Fahey, J., dissenting).
Prior thereto, the prospect of a negligence claim structured the activity of New Yorkers relative to their domestic animals, be it a horse (see, e.g., Dickson v. McCoy, 39 N.Y. 400, 401-03 (1868); Unger v. Forty-Second St. & Grand St. Ferry R.R. Co., 51 N.Y. 497, 500 (1873), Benoit v. Troy & L. R. Co., 154 N.Y. 223, 225-27 (1897)), or, more prevalently, a dog (see, e.g., Hyland v. Cobb, 252 N.Y. 325, 326-27 (1929); Young v. Wyman, 76 N.Y.2d 1009, 1012 (1990)).
