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41 Cal. App. 3d 530

Pritchard v. Sharp

California Court of Appeal

Decided September 3, 1974

California Court of Appeal · decided 1974-09-03

Relies on Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. · Liberty Mutual Insurance v. Fabian

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1974-09-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently May 1990

6 state decisions

20197419801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1 Opinion

THE COURT.

¶2 The sole question we are called upon to decide on this appeal is whether an action brought under section 3342 of the Civil Code, the “dog bite statute,” is governed by the one-year statute of limitations of subdivision 3 of section 340 of the Code of Civil Procedure, or the three-year statute of limitations of subdivision 1 of section 338 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

¶3 Section 3342 of the Civil Code was originally enacted in 1931. (Stats. 1931, ch. 503, p. 1095.) The statute merely changed the proof required under the common law action which preexisted the statute by deleting the requirement that to establish liability it must be alleged and proved that the dog was “vicious.”

¶4 The action is one for the recovery of damages for personal injuries. The controlling section is therefore subdivision 3 of section 340 of the Code of Civil Procedure. (Aetna Cas. etc. Co. v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. (1953) 41 Cal.2d 785, 787-788 1264 P.2d 5, 41 A.L.R.2d 1037]; Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Fabian (1964) 228 Cal.App.2d 427, 429-432 [39 Cal.Rptr. 570], hg. den.; 2 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1970) Actions, § 310, p. 1153.)

¶5 Judgment of dismissal affirmed.

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