S&S TOWING & RECOVERY, LTD v. CHARNOTA

Michael Charnota's leashed dog was attacked and killed by a dog named Tucker that had escaped from a nearby towing company's lot, and Tucker then attacked and seriously injured Charnota himself. Charnota sued the towing company and its owners under a Georgia law that lets a plaintiff prove a dog is 'vicious' simply by showing it was loose in violation of a local leash law. The towing company argued this rule was unconstitutional because it created an irrebuttable presumption that the owners knew their dog was dangerous, denying them a fair chance to defend themselves as required by due process. A Paulding County judge rejected that argument, and the Supreme Court of Georgia took up the constitutional question directly. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the law only defines viciousness one way among several and still lets owners contest liability by showing they didn't know the dog was unrestrained, so it does not cut off their opportunity to be heard. The court affirmed and sent the case back for further proceedings.

The second sentence of OCGA § 51-2-7, which allows a plaintiff to prove an animal is 'vicious' by showing it violated a local leash law while unrestrained, creates at most a rebuttable presumption and still requires proof of the owner's knowledge, so it satisfies procedural due process by giving owners a genuine opportunity to be heard.

The ruling preserves a tool Georgia dog bite victims can use to hold owners liable without proving prior knowledge of a dog's dangerous history, so long as a local leash law was violated, while confirming that owners and pet-related businesses retain a real chance to defend themselves in court.

Affirmed and remanded

1. The court started from the presumption that statutes are constitutional and that the challenger bears the burden of showing a clear conflict with the Constitution, so it construed the leash-law provision in a way that would preserve its validity if possible.
2. Due process in a civil case between private parties requires only reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard, and a fact-finding presumption is not automatically invalid; only a presumption that cannot be rebutted by any evidence violates due process.
3. The court traced the statute's history and prior case law establishing that a plaintiff suing over a dog bite must prove scienter, meaning the owner's knowledge of the dog's dangerous tendencies, even though the statute's text does not use that word.
4. Reading the leash-law sentence together with the rest of the statute, the court concluded it creates only an additional way to prove viciousness (by showing a leash law violation) rather than eliminating the owner's chance to show lack of knowledge, so it is a rebuttable presumption at most.
5. Because owners have had notice of this rule since 1985 and can still present evidence that they didn't know the dog was vicious or unrestrained, and because the legislature had a rational basis to let local governments decide when animals must be restrained, the provision satisfies due process.

• dog bite lawsuit
• leash law
• due process challenge
• vicious animal statute
• Paulding County