Category: Scots law

Labradors are not evil. Mostly.

From a case in the Court of Session, reported in the news area of the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland.

This seems to have been an unfortunate accident involving an excitable black lab that collided with another dog walker and injured her knee, while it was playing with her own dog. It was attempted to establish liability for the behaviour of the dog under the Animals (Scotland) Act 1987:

“Section 1 of the Act provides, so far as relevant:

“1(1) … a person shall be liable for any injury or damage caused by an animal if –

(b) the animal belongs to a species whose members generally are by virtue of their physical attributes or habits likely (unless controlled or restrained) to injure severely or kill persons or animals, or damage property to a material extent; and

(c) the injury or damage complained of is directly referable to such physical attributes or habits.

(2) In this section ‘species’ includes –

(a) a form or variety of the species …

(3) For the purposes of sub-section (1)(b) above –

(a) dogs … shall be deemed to be likely (unless controlled or restrained) to injure severely or kill persons or animals by biting or otherwise savaging, attacking or harrying …”

As Lord Malcolm said: “The pursuer’s case is that, by virtue of their physical attributes or habits, black labradors are likely to injure severely or kill persons unless restrained or controlled (section 1(1)(b)). I suspect that for the general population this proposition would cause much incredulity. “

Very true – I think you may well be more likely to be bounced to death, or drowned in drool than be confronted with a Cujo-type labrador attack…

Does Denmark want them back?

Apparently, the Shetland Islands could not actually be part of Scotland, being pawned to the Scots crown in 1469 as part of a long term loan by King Christian of Denmark, and never intentioned to become a permanent part of Scotland.

Not much chance of succeeding in the case I’d think, but it does give an amusing thought – how much would Denmark have to pay now to clear the debt and get them back?

The Belgians reach an agreement…finally!

You know, I thought the UK political situation could be difficult. The Welsh Assembly, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Assembly all having different levels of devolved powers. Knowing who can do what, and where that power comes from can be a nightmare. Each piece of secondary legislation has to be double checked to see if it applies to all the parts of the UK, or only some, and even the ones that only apply to some parts may have some importance in general to the parts they’re not actually in force in. For instance, the pleural plaques compensation is currently UK wide legislation, but the Scottish Government disagrees with the decision, and is planning to create its own legislation under its devolved health remit.

But the Belgian situation makes all those niggles easy to deal with. They’ve only just managed to swear in a government…after elections in June 2007! And it may still collapse in July 2008.

At least in the UK we only have one language to have to cope with in negotiations. Well, actually, there’s Welsh in Wales…and Gaelic in Scotland…hmmm, that could get tricky if you get people who want to be difficult!