Pretoria – The owner of a bull terrier has been ruled 100% liable for the damages suffered by a child bitten in the face when the dog tried to grab a chicken thigh out of the child’s hand in 2014.
Little Eli Barnard’s father Marius is claiming R600000 in damages from the dog’s owner, Marthinus Ras.
Eli, now 6, was 4 when he was bitten.
Ras tried to defend his dog’s actions by telling the high court in Pretoria that the child teased the dog. He said the boy was dangling the chicken drumstick in front of the dog’s face before taking a bite out of it.
But Judge Johan Louw accepted the evidence of Eli’s nanny Johanna Baloyi, who denied this. She said the dog came from nowhere and suddenly went for the child’s face.
Barnard rented a house on Ras’s smallholding in Montana, north of Pretoria, when the incident occurred on May 16, 2014.
Ras occupied the main house, but was hardly ever home as he worked elsewhere.
Barnard and Baloyi both said Ras only came home about once a week to feed the dogs.
Barnard said Ras knew that his dog was vicious. He argued that Ras had the duty to ensure that the dog could not escape from the backyard, where it was usually kept.
The court heard that the dog had, in the past, bitten Baloyi on the foot. Ras, however, said his dog was well behaved and friendly.
Baloyi earlier testified that on the day of the incident she and the child sat on the porch of the house, eating chicken. The male dog, together with the bitch, was at the time in Ras’s backyard.
Baloyi said when she looked up she suddenly saw the male dog next to them. The dog wanted to take the child’s meat out of his hand, she said, but Eli put the meat into his mouth. The dog tried to grab the chicken out of his mouth and bit him in the process.
Eli’s wheelchair-bound father was in the house at the time. He said he heard the child and Baloyi scream and he rushed outside. He saw his child’s face covered in blood.
Baloyi managed to pull the dog off the child.
Barnard rushed the child to the Montana Hospital, where he was stabilised before being taken to the Eugene Marais Hospital.
He was bitten in the face, which left him with severe scarring across his nose, eyes and face.
Barnard blamed Ras for the incident and said Ras should have ensured that the dogs could not escape from the backyard because he knew they were vicious.
Ras said someone must have left the gate between the two premises open on the day of the incident, as he always made sure the dogs remained in the backyard.
He also testified that Baloyi had told him the child teased the dog with the chicken thigh, by dangling it in front of the dog.
Ras has meanwhile sold his dogs, saying he got rid of them not because they were vicious, but because he sold his smallholding.
Ras said Baloyi told him she had had to reprimand the child for teasing the dog. She also told him that the dog only “slightly” bit the child when he tried to get hold of the meat.
Judge Louw said while Baloyi impressed the court with her honest recollection of what happened that day; he could not say the same of Ras. He accused the dog owner of making up a version while in the witness box.
The judge said not only did Baloyi deny the teasing, but if one looked at the pictures of the child’s mauled face, it was clear that it was not just a nip in the face.
“The defendant (Ras) did not convince me that the child provoked the dog that day I am not prepared to accept his version above that of Baloyi,” the judge said.
Advocate Gert Lubbe, who appeared for Barnard, said they were relieved at the outcome. “This case meant a lot for Eli’s father, as the child still has to have reconstructive surgery and is still traumatised.”
The amount of damages due will be determined at a later stage.