The legal shield that usually protects landowners from being sued over wild animal attacks does not apply to the case of a woman who was allegedly killed by an alligator, a divided Georgia Court of Appeals has ruled.

The Landings

The decision allows the family of Gwyneth Williams to proceed to trial with their wrongful-death lawsuit against the Skidaway Island, Ga., residential community where she died in October 2007. They allege The Landings is liable for failing to keep the marshy property safe from an eight-foot alligator that attacked Williams, 83, as she was taking a walk.

Courts have dismissed similar cases under the doctrine of “ferae naturae,” which says a landowner cannot be liable for a wild animal attack unless the landowner has control over the animal.

But a 5-2 majority of the Georgia court said the owners of The Landings had “failed to show that an alligator attack upon a person was a danger arising from the arrangement and use of their premises which was not foreseeable as a matter of law, such that the owners had no duty to take reasonable precautions to protect invitees from the danger.”

The “ferae naturae” rule does not provide a landowner with “a blanket immunity from liability for any harm caused by a free wild animal on the owner's land,” Chief Judge John J. Ellington wrote for the court.

In a dissent, Judge Gary Blaylock Andrews said The Landings had taken reasonable precautions against the “minimal risk” of an alligator attack by, among other things, warning residents of the presence of wild alligators in the community's lagoons.

There was no evidence that the lagoons “created a dangerous condition which caused alligators to act in unexpected or abnormal ways,” he noted, and requiring the owners to “fence off The Landings from the alligators ... is tantamount to imposing a duty to exercise extraordinary care and making the owners insurers of invitees' safety.”

Williams's mangled body was found Oct. 6, 2007 in a man-made lagoon about 100 yards away from her daughter's home in The Landings, where she had been housesitting. Although no one saw an alligator attack her, three boys driving a golf cart near the lagoon heard a woman screaming for help the night before.

A trapper searched the lagoon and killed an eight-foot alligator. Parts of Williams's body were found inside the animal.

The owners of The Landings argued that because alligator attacks on humans are rare and there had been no prior alligator attacks on their property, there was no evidence from which a jury could find the alleged attack on Williams was foreseeable.

The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled in 1971 that a service station owner was not liable for an attack on a patron by a rattlesnake in part because the owner had no prior knowledge of rattlesnakes on his property. Williams v. Gibbs, 182 S.E.2d 184.

But in partially denying The Landings' motion for summary judgment, Judge Ellington said “the evidence is undisputed that the owners had actual knowledge that alligators were commonly present throughout the lagoon system” and there was evidence that they were aware of the risk of an alligator attack.

In the four months preceding Williams' death, the court noted, the homeowners association called for a trapper to remove at least 11 alligators that were more than seven feet long. Most fatal or serious attacks on humans are by alligators more than eight feet long.

The majority decision could help the plaintiff in an alligator attack case against the owners of a  South Carolina golf course. James Wiencek, who lost an arm in the attack while he was playing a round of golf, claims the design of the course created an alligator hazard.

By Matthew Heller
4/8/11