Get your own Free Home PageTitle 4 - Animals and Animal Husbandry
Chapter 4-13 - Dogs
§ 4-13-16 Action for damages to animals – Double damages on second recovery – Destruction of offending dog.
If any dog kills, wounds, worries, or assists in killing, wounding or worrying, any sheep, lamb, cattle, horse, hog, swine, fowl, or other domestic animal belonging to or in the possession of any person, or assaults, bites, or otherwise injures any person while traveling the highway or out of the enclosure of the owner or keeper of that dog, the owner or keeper of the dog shall be liable to the person aggrieved, for all damage sustained, to be recovered in a civil action, with costs of suit. If afterwards any such damage is done by that dog, the owner or keeper of the dog shall pay to the party aggrieved double the damage, to be recovered in the manner set forth and an order shall be made by the court before whom that second recovery is made, for killing the dog. The order shall be executed by the officer charged with the execution of the order, and it shall not be necessary, in order to sustain this action, to prove that the owner or keeper of the dog knew that the dog was accustomed to causing this damage.
§ 4-13-18 Destruction of dogs in defense of person or livestock.
Any person may kill any dog that suddenly assaults him or her or any person of his or her family or in his or her company, while the person assaulted is out of the enclosure of the owner or keeper of that dog and any person may kill any dog found out of the enclosure of its owner or keeper, assaulting, wounding, or killing any cattle, sheep, lamb, horse, hog, or fowl, not the property of its owner.
§ 4-13-20 Appraisal of damages done by dogs.
Each town or city council, excepting the town and city councils in the cities of Newport and Pawtucket and in the towns of Jamestown, Little Compton, New Shoreham, Tiverton, Exeter, and Burrillville shall annually in the month of April appoint one or more suitable persons as appraisers, who shall be sworn to the faithful discharge of their duties, to appraise the damage that may be done to any owner of any sheep, goats or lambs, cattle or horses, hogs or fowls, closely confined game birds, or closely confined rabbits suffering loss by reason of the biting, maiming, or killing by any dog or dogs, and to give a statement in writing to the owner suffering the loss; and the owner, suffering loss, shall, within two (2) days after the loss comes to his or her knowledge, notify the appraiser, appointed and sworn, living nearest to him or her in the city or town where the damage occurred, of the loss; and the appraiser shall, on receipt of twenty-five cents (25¢) for each mile's travel (or, in the towns of Middletown and Portsmouth, twenty cents (20¢) for each mile's travel) and the sum of one dollar ($1.00) from the owner, appraise the damage and give a statement in writing, with his or her lawful fees taxed thereon, to the owner; and the owner shall, within sixty (60) days, present the statement to the city or town council of the city or town, who shall draw an order on the city or town treasurer for the amount of the appraisal and fees, or for any other amount as the council, in the council's discretion, after careful examination, shall deem just; and the order, when presented to the city or town treasurer, shall be paid in the same manner as any other order made by the city or town council upon the city or town treasurer.
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