Maryland Retailer Found Not Liable for Goose Attack on Customer

December 11, 2007

A Montgomery County, Md. jury has rejected a negligence lawsuit brought by a woman who claimed she was attacked by a Canada goose while at a shopping center in 2004, causing her to fall and break her hip.

Suzanne Webster claimed the shopping center and a pool store, Contemporary Watercrafters, didn’t do enough to protect the public from the nesting goose; but her lawsuit laid an egg. The jury last week sided with the store and the shopping center, owned by Rockville Pike Properties.

The attorney for the defendants says his clients’ hands were tied by laws protecting the geese and preventing the removal of the geese or the nest. But Webster’s attorney says the store made the situation worse by letting employees feed the geese.

___

Information from: The (Baltimore) Daily Record,

Homepage