The article discusses Flanders v. Goodfellow, where the court overruled its previous ruling that barred negligence claims against domestic animal owners. Emphasizing the flexibility of stare decisis, the court concluded that the longstanding rule in Bard v. Jahnke was an outlier. It found that owners can now be held liable if they knew or should have known of their animal’s dangerous tendencies, modernizing the law on animal injuries in New York.
In Flanders v. Goodfellow, ___ N.Y.3d ___, 2025 WL 1127772 (April 17, 2025), the New York Court of Appeals overruled a prior decision barring common-law negligence liability when a domestic animal causes harm.
The court concluded that the challenged rule of non-liability “is in tension with ordinary tort principles, unworkable, and, in some circumstances, unfair,” and thus, continued adherence to this rule “would not achieve the stability, predictability, and uniformity in the application of the law that the doctrine of stare decisis seeks to promote.”
Flanders illustrates the flexibility of the doctrine of stare decisis in the context of tort cases, where the law evolves as society’s notions of duties change.
“‘Stare decisis’ is the doctrine which holds that common-law decisions should stand as precedents for guidance in cases arising in the future’ and that a rule of law ‘once decided by a court, will generally be followed in subsequent cases presenting the same legal problem.’”
People v. Peque, 22 N.Y.2d 164, 194 (2013) (citation omitted). The doctrine “is the preferred course because it promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” See People v. Taylor, 9 N.Y.3d 129, 148 (2007) (citation omitted).
The purpose of stare decisis “is to promote efficiency and provide guidance and consistency in future cases by recognizing that legal questions, once settled, should not be reexamined every time they are presented.” See People v. Bing, 76 N.Y.2d 331, 338 (1990). Thus, prior decisions should only be overruled “in the rarest of cases.” See Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 28 N.Y.3d 1, 23, 61 N.E.3d 488, 497 (2016).
But stare decisis is not a universal inexorable command. Rather, as Justice Felix Frankfurter observed, it “is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable.” See Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 119 (1940).
“Although a court should be slow to overrule its precedents, there is little reason to avoid doing so when persuaded by the ‘lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning.’” See Bing, supra, 76 N.Y.2d at 338 (citation omitted). Stare decisis “was intended, not to effect a ‘petrifying rigidity,’ but to assure the justice that flows from certainty and stability.
If, instead, adherence to precedent offers not justice but unfairness * * * it loses its right to survive, and no principle constrains us to follow it.” See Bing v. Thunig, 2 N.Y.2d 656, 667 (1957).
Flexible Doctrine
Since stare decisis is a flexible doctrine, not all precedents are accorded equal deference. Distinctions in the application or withholding of stare decisis often depend on the nature of the issue or the field of law in the matter before the court.
For example, on one end of the spectrum, an “extraordinary and compelling justification is needed to overturn precedents involving statutory interpretation” because “if the precedent or precedents have misinterpreted the legislative intention [embodied in a statute], the legislature’s competency to correct the misinterpretation is readily at hand.” See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Fitzgerald, 25 N.Y.2d 799, 819-820 (2015) (bracketed material in original).
“Generally, once the courts have interpreted a statute any change in the rule will be left to the Legislature, particularly where the courts’ interpretation is a long-standing one.” Matter of Eckart, 39 N.Y.2d 493, 499-500 (1976).
Likewise, in cases involving property rights and property dispositions, “stability and adherence to precedent are generally more important than a better or even a ‘correct’ rule of law.” See Eckart, supra, 39 N.Y.2d at 500.
Thus, courts generally strictly adhere to precedent in matters dealing with land titles, commercial transactions, contracts and wills. These are matters where “the need for stability and predictability in the law outweigh the need to purge an erroneous decision.”
Where the interpretation of the Constitution is at issue, courts are more prone to correct an error stemming from an earlier precedent. “[T]he principle is well established that in cases interpreting the Constitution courts will, * * * if convinced of prior error, correct the error.” People v. Hobson, 39 N.Y.2d 479, 488–489 (1976).
“The rationale underlying the judiciary being more susceptible to revisiting precedent on constitutional issues is that the legislature cannot change the Constitution to correct an error found by a court.
This is in stark contrast to the power the Legislature has to correct a statute and make its meaning clear, if it believes a court’s interpretation was wrong.” Taylor, supra, 9 N.Y.3d 129 at 149.
“Tort cases, but especially personal injury cases, offer another example where courts will, if necessary, more readily reexamine established precedent to achieve the ends of justice in a more modern context.” Hobson, supra, 39 N.Y.2d at 489.
But “[e]ven under the most flexible version of the doctrine [of stare decisis], prior decisions should not be overruled unless a ‘compelling justification’ exists for such a drastic step.” See Grady v. Chenango Valley Cent. Sch. Dist., 40 N.Y.3d 89, 96 (2023) (bracketed material in original).
Factors In Deciding Whether To Overrule A Precedent
This brings us to Flanders, in which the plaintiff was injured when the defendants’ dog bit her. The plaintiff commenced a personal injury action, asserting separate causes of action for strict liability and for negligence.
The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, holding that the defendants had demonstrated that they neither knew nor had reason to know of the dog’s allegedly vicious propensities and the plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact in opposition.
The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, affirmed the dismissal of both causes of action. See 215 A.D.3d 1248 (4th Dept, 2023). The court acknowledged the availability of a strict liability cause of action when an owner of a domestic animal has actual or constructive knowledge of their animal’s vicious propensities, but found insufficient evidence of such notice in the appellate record.
The Fourth Department gave short shrift to the negligence cause of action, holding that “cases involving harm caused by a domestic animal ‘may proceed only under a theory of strict liability, [and] not on theories of common-law negligence.’” See 215 A.D.3d at 1249-1250.
This result was consistent with Bard v. Jahnke, 6 N.Y.3d 592, 597 (2006), and its progeny in which the Court of Appeals held that there can be no common-law negligence liability when a domestic animal causes harm.
In an opinion by Judge Caitlin J. Halligan, the Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated both causes of action. With respect to strict liability, the court concluded that “there is a triable issue of fact as to whether the [defendants] should have known that the dog’s behavior ‘reflect[ed] a proclivity to act in a way that puts others at risk of harm,’” and that “[t]his question of fact precludes a grant of summary judgment for the [defendants] on the strict liability cause of action and requires its reinstatement.” See 2025 WL 1127772, at *3 (citation omitted).
Next, the court turned to Bard’s blanket preclusion of negligence liability for harm caused by a domestic animal. The plaintiff in Flanders asked the court to overrule that aspect of Bard and to recognize negligence as an alternative to strict liability for injuries caused by domestic animals.
The court began its analysis with a synopsis of the general principles relating to stare decisis, emphasizing the flexibility of this doctrine in the context of tort cases. See 2025 WL 1127772, at *5.
Within this context, the court identified several interrelated factors in deciding whether to overrule a precedent: (1) “whether the decision is well-reasoned and consistent with relevant general principles of law,” and in particular, “[whether] a recent precedent ‘fits uncomfortably into our tort jurisprudence;’” (2) “whether legal developments in the doctrine undermine an earlier decision;” and (3) “whether [the precedent] is ‘unworkable,’ ‘creates more questions than it resolves,’ or ‘no longer serves the ends of justice.’”
Consideration of these factors led the court to conclude that “the time has come to set aside Bard’s rule that an owner of a domestic animal may not be held liable in negligence for harms caused by their animal.”
With respect to the first factor, the court characterized Bard as an “outlier” that was inconsistent with the majority rule in other states and with New York’s own principles of negligence liability permitting a victim to seek recovery by proving that a defendant failed to exercise due care and thereby proximately caused the victim’s injuries.
As the court noted, “by allowing liability only upon proof that the owner had actual or constructive knowledge of a vicious propensity, the rule gives owners of domestic animals little reason to familiarize themselves with any potential proclivities that might lead the animal to cause harm, and in turn, to take reasonable steps to prevent any harm that may result.” See 2025 WL 1127772, at *6 (citations omitted).
With respect to the second factor, legal developments since the Bard decision showed that its “bright-line rule has been muddied by various carve-outs that allow negligence liability against owners of domestic animals,” such that “[t]he benefits the Bard court anticipated from its blanket preclusion of negligence liability have been much diminished by the subsequent exceptions to the rule.”
With respect to the third factor, the court held that the multiple exceptions to Bard for the sake of fairness, along with the passage of time, have shown that Bard and its progeny have “failed to achieve the efficiency, consistency and uniformity in the application of the law which the doctrine of stare decisis seeks to promote.” See 2025 WL 1127772, at *8 (citations omitted).
Accordingly, the court in Flanders overruled Bard, abrogated its progeny and adopted a two-pronged approach to liability for animal-induced harms: “If the owner knew or should have known the animal had vicious propensities, the plaintiff may seek to hold them strictly liable.
Thomas R. Newman is of counsel at Duane Morris and Steven J. Ahmuty, Jr. is retired from Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt.
Reprinted with permission from New York Law Journal, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.
