JOHANNESBURG – A substantial damages claim amounting to hundreds of thousands of rands brought by a Johannesburg woman against her neighbours has been dismissed with costs by the High Court in Johannesburg.

The civil suit arose from a highly disputed suburban incident during which the plaintiff claimed she was severely injured after an English bulldog named Charlie aggressively knocked her to the ground.

The claimed events

The plaintiff, Louise Ann Rivett, sued the owners of the dog, Robert and Ann Blom. Rivett claims she was walking her two small dogs, Max (a Scottish terrier) and Marge (a mixed-breed Yorkshire terrier), on leashes on the morning of 4 July 2023.

She testified that the defendants’ English bulldog, Charlie, escaped from his property and charged directly toward her at high speed with his ears pinned back. Rivett alleged that the bulldog ran straight between her legs, causing her to violently lose her balance and fall backward onto her buttocks and spine, resulting in severe physical injuries.

The defendants presented an entirely conflicting narrative to the court. While they freely admitted that Charlie had slipped out through their residential gate that morning, they vehemently denied that the dog had ever made physical contact with or knocked the plaintiff down. According to their version, Charlie merely ran over out of playful curiosity to investigate Rivett’s dogs. They argued that Rivett panicked upon seeing the bulldog and fell entirely on her own accord while frantically attempting to lift her small terriers into the air to keep them out of reach.

The ruling

The decisive factor in resolving the dispute was the testimony of an independent eyewitness, Ms. Ndemande, who observed the entire event from a close vantage point. Ndemande testified that she saw Charlie approach and that there was a brief, noisy interaction between the animals, but she explicitly denied that the bulldog ran between the plaintiff’s legs. She further confirmed that the plaintiff’s fall was not caused by any direct physical impact from Charlie.

Acting Judge Sarita Liebenberg found that the plaintiff’s version of events was highly improbable and wholly inconsistent with the objective facts. The judge noted that it was physically implausible for a person attempting to grab an aggressive dog’s hind legs, as was insinuated during parts of the testimony, to fall flat backward onto their buttocks upon losing their grip. Liebenberg found Ndemande as an honest, unbiased, and highly credible witness who had no reason to fabricate evidence in favour of her former employers.

Ruling that the plaintiff had failed to discharge the necessary onus of proof on a balance of probabilities, the court dismissed the claim with costs.

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