Landlord Liability for Tenant Dog Attacks in Georgia

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After a tenant’s dog attacks, the injured person’s first claim is against the dog’s owner, but the claim may also reach up the chain to the property owner. For a landlord who has surrendered possession, Georgia’s answer is narrow: OCGA 44-7-14 confines the landlord’s liability to defective construction and failure to keep the premises in repair, OCGA 51-2-7 does not reach a landlord who neither owns nor keeps the dog, and the Supreme Court of Georgia has required evidence that the landlord knew of the dog’s tendencies. Where a landlord or manager controls the property where the dog was, the premises statute applies, and the same question of knowledge decides the claim.

The Statute That Limits a Landlord’s Liability

Under OCGA 44-7-14, once a landlord has fully parted with possession and the right to possess, third persons hurt by the tenant’s negligence or illegal use of the premises have no claim against the landlord, except for damage caused by defective construction or by the landlord’s failure to keep the premises in repair. A landlord in that position is exposed only through the two exceptions in the proviso. Both concern the condition of the property, and neither mentions the temperament of an animal.

The Supreme Court has described the section’s purpose. In Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso, 305 Ga. 480 (2019), the court noted, quoting Martin v. Johnson-Lemon, 271 Ga. 120 (1999), that the General Assembly enacted the section to “limit the potential liability of out-of-possession landlords” and that any change in that liability has to come from the legislature rather than the courts.

Why the Keeper Statute Does Not Reach a Landlord

OCGA 51-2-7 reaches the owner or keeper of a vicious or dangerous animal that, through careless management or being let loose, injures a person who did not provoke it, and it lets vicious propensity be shown by an applicable leash or at-heel ordinance that was not followed. Tyner held that the statute does not apply to an out-of-possession landlord: “By its plain terms, OCGA § 51-2-7 applies only to ‘[a] person who owns or keeps a vicious or dangerous animal.'” The plaintiffs conceded that they had pleaded their claim against the landlord only under OCGA 44-7-14. The Supreme Court said the Court of Appeals had erred “when it effectively wrote the phrase ‘or landlord’ into OCGA § 51-2-7 where no such language exists,” and that the error mattered because the Court of Appeals had used the statute’s leash-ordinance sentence to bypass the plaintiffs’ burden to show that the landlord knew of the dogs’ propensity.

Lemontree Properties, LLC v. Samples, No. A20A1493 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 27, 2020), applied the point to a landlord whose tenants’ dog bit an eight-year-old girl playing in the family’s yard. The lease listed the dog, and the landlord had approved the tenant’s chain-link fence. The Court of Appeals reasoned that “there was no evidence that Lemontree exercised any custody, care, or control over Jax,” so OCGA 51-2-7 was inapplicable “because Lemontree was not an owner or keeper under the statute.”

The Repair Exception and the Knowledge It Requires

In Tyner, the Supreme Court assumed, without deciding, that OCGA 44-7-14 can be used to hold an out-of-possession landlord liable for injuries from a dog bite, and it assumed that the landlord had breached the statutory duty to keep the premises in repair. The claim still failed on causation. Because Georgia law starts from no presumption that a dog is vicious or dangerous (relying on Steagald v. Eason, 300 Ga. 717 (2017)), plaintiffs “seeking to hold out-of-possession landlords liable under OCGA § 44-7-14 for injuries caused by their tenants’ dogs must therefore present some evidence showing that the landlord had knowledge of the dogs’ tendencies or propensities to do harm in order to demonstrate reasonable foreseeability.”

The facts show how demanding that is. The landlord leased a house whose fenced backyard had a front gate. A pest-control or lawn-service provider broke the gate’s latch, and the tenants secured the gate with a tied leash, weights, and a cement block. The landlord did not repair the latch, and the court assumed for summary judgment that the landlord knew it was broken. The tenants’ two pit bull terriers later attacked a woman who was out walking two small dogs about two blocks from the rental house, and the plaintiffs alleged that the dogs had escaped through the gate. The tenant pleaded guilty to four ordinance violations, and the woman was airlifted to a hospital. But the plaintiffs admitted that the dogs “had never previously bitten or attacked anyone, or shown any signs of aggression,” so “it therefore was not reasonably foreseeable that Matta-Troncoso’s injuries could ‘aris[e] from’ Tyner’s failure to repair the broken gate latch.” Even proof that the landlord knew the tenants kept two pit bulls “would not be enough to establish reasonable foreseeability.” The court reversed the Court of Appeals, leaving summary judgment for the landlord in place.

Lemontree applied the same rule. There was no evidence that the landlord knew of any aggressive tendencies of the dog, so the Court of Appeals held there was no jury issue on foreseeability and reversed the denial of summary judgment for the landlord.

When the Landlord or Manager Controls the Property

On property the defendant controls, OCGA 51-3-1 supplies the duty, ordinary care toward invitees in keeping the premises and approaches safe, and a dog claim under that statute turns on superior knowledge. In GoldOller Management Services, LLC v. Smith, No. A22A1567 (Ga. Ct. App. Dec. 28, 2022), a resident jogging around an apartment complex’s lake was barked at and charged by a dog walked by an older woman who was staying with a daughter who was a tenant. The resident emailed the complex, and weeks later fell while trying to get away from the dog. The Court of Appeals reversed the denial of summary judgment for the management company and its property manager. It explained that “a plaintiff must show both that the dog had a vicious propensity, and that the premises owner had superior knowledge of the dog’s vicious propensity,” and that here the plaintiff’s knowledge “was equal to or greater than that of appellants.” The management company knew only that “an older unidentified woman was walking an unidentified large dog on the complex property,” and the court called that evidence something that “falls far short of creating a jury question.”

How the Two Facts Work Together

For example, imagine a dog that escapes because a gate the landlord was told was broken was not fixed, where the landlord had earlier received written complaints that the dog had lunged at residents. The claim against the dog’s owner rests on OCGA 51-2-7. Against an out-of-possession landlord, and under the analysis Tyner used while assuming that OCGA 44-7-14 reaches a dog bite, the two facts do different work: the unrepaired gate is the failure to repair, and the complaints bear on whether an attack was reasonably foreseeable. Without the complaints, foreseeability would be unproven, as it was in Tyner; without the gate, there would be no failure to repair for the statute’s proviso to reach.

Frequently Asked Questions

What rights can a landlord keep and still be out of possession?
Several. “[A] landlord’s retention of the right to enter, inspect and repair is not inconsistent with a full surrender of possession to the tenant,” and in Lemontree the landlord’s right to approve the tenants’ pets “did not constitute such control as would result in [its] partial possession of the leased property” (both quoting Ranwez v. Roberts, 268 Ga. App. 80 (2004)). Lemontree also cited decisions allowing an out-of-possession landlord to keep the right to approve the tenant’s construction of improvements, the tenants’ insurance policies, and the tenant’s plans for improvements.

Does a city’s vicious-dog ordinance make the landlord an “owner”?
Not in a way that creates a separate claim against an out-of-possession landlord. In Lemontree, the city’s ordinance classified pit bulls as vicious, required owners to meet safeguards that included a secure enclosure, a perimeter fence, a $500,000 insurance policy, and warning signs, and defined an “owner” to include one who “knowingly permits an animal to be harbored or kept.” Without deciding whether the landlord was an owner, the court held that “[a]s an out-of-possession landlord, [the landlord’s] only liability to third persons is that of OCGA § 44-7-14” (quoting Griffiths v. Rowe Properties, 271 Ga. App. 344 (2005)), and that a negligence per se claim would “effectively eviscerate” the statute (quoting Martin v. Johnson-Lemon).

Is a dog’s barking evidence that it is dangerous?
In GoldOller, the court observed, quoting Dilfield v. Bealing, 357 Ga. App. 279 (2020), that “[a dog’s] barking at people generally does not serve as evidence of vicious propensity,” and, quoting Steagald, that Georgia law “presumes that dogs, regardless of breed, are of a harmless species.”

Is a landlord liable for a dangerous condition the tenant built?
Tyner described Colquitt v. Rowland, 265 Ga. 905 (1995), as standing for the proposition that after a landlord has relinquished possession and control, the landlord “cannot be held liable under OCGA § 44-7-14 to third parties for injuries caused by a dangerous condition erected by the tenant,” there a swimming pool. Tyner distinguished it because the gate latch there predated the tenancy and the landlord was assumed to have known it needed repair.

  • OCGA 44-7-14; OCGA 51-2-7; OCGA 51-3-1
  • Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso, 305 Ga. 480 (2019)
  • Martin v. Johnson-Lemon, 271 Ga. 120 (1999) (as quoted in Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso and Lemontree Properties, LLC v. Samples)
  • Steagald v. Eason, 300 Ga. 717 (2017) (as quoted in Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso and GoldOller Management Services, LLC v. Smith)
  • Colquitt v. Rowland, 265 Ga. 905 (1995) (as described in Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso)
  • Lemontree Properties, LLC v. Samples, No. A20A1493 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 27, 2020)
  • Ranwez v. Roberts, 268 Ga. App. 80 (2004) and Griffiths v. Rowe Properties, 271 Ga. App. 344 (2005) (as quoted in Lemontree Properties, LLC v. Samples)
  • GoldOller Management Services, LLC v. Smith, No. A22A1567 (Ga. Ct. App. Dec. 28, 2022)
  • Dilfield v. Bealing, 357 Ga. App. 279 (2020) (as quoted in GoldOller Management Services, LLC v. Smith)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about landlord liability for a tenant’s dog under Georgia law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether a landlord can be held responsible turns on facts about possession, control, knowledge, and the condition of the property, and on filing deadlines. Anyone injured by a tenant’s dog, or facing a claim, should consult a licensed Georgia attorney about the particular situation.

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