Orange County NC Website
14 <br /> Attachment B(3) <br /> TFEEPASS& WOOUSAN/MALS <br /> Background <br /> Acomplex and challenging issue arising in the Gommissioners' discussion is the way in which"trespass' <br /> should be defined and understood in the context of the Unified Ordinance. A primary reason for this is <br /> that how trespass is defined has consequences for whether a dog will be declared as a vicious animal <br /> when it bites someone who has come on its owner's property without invitation or permission. <br /> Currently,the county's ordinance has a basic notion of trespass, namely, a person entering onto <br /> property without invitation or permission from a property owner. If a person is trespassing in this sense <br /> and si he is bitten by a dog,the dog may not be regarded as a vicious dog(Sec.4-37). By contrast,the <br /> Unified Ordinance proposed a more complex notion, recognizing that many different people enter onto <br /> other people's property without permission for many different reasons. Specifically, it used"willful <br /> trespass" in place of the essentially binary(or black and white)notion of trespassfound in the existing <br /> ordinance as a basisfor making exceptionsto declaring a dog dangerous. ' <br /> At the October 4,2013, Board meeting,therewas a thorough discussion of trespass in relation to the <br /> flux of daily life in in our own and other communities. Some parts of the discussion were concerned <br /> with how people's own dogs would be affected if they behaved protectively on their property. Other <br /> parts of the discussion underscored the wide variety of diverse but entirely lawful reasons a person <br /> enters onto the property of another without permission or explicit invitation. <br /> The discussion suggested that ideally the notion of trespass used in the proposed ordinance should be <br /> deepened in order to allow consistent and meaningful distinction between justifiable and unjustifiable <br /> bites to uninvited persons that occurred on the private property of a dog owner. The full range of such <br /> incidents was further suggested in the discussion"my dog scenarios" developed by the ASAB after the <br /> Commissioner's October 4,2013 meeting to serve as an aid to further analysis of trespass and ultimately <br /> its definition in the Unified Ordinance. <br /> It was in this context that Professor Aimee Wall and her associate, Christopher Tyner, responded to our <br /> request for assistance by providing a detailed analysis of the notion of trespass and developing a flow <br /> diagram for decision-making.2 They met with staff and ASAB representatives to discusstheir analysisof <br /> trespass(among other issues)and its implications for the Unified Ordinance. SAbsequently,they revised <br /> their written analysis.The final version of their analysis and their decision-making diagram are among <br /> the attachments for this agenda item. <br /> Among other things,their revised analysis addresses the legal issue of whether children can and should <br /> be held to the same standards of conduct as adults with regard to trespass. This was another issue that <br /> emerged at the Board's October meeting with Commissioners expressing varied opinions. <br /> In doing so, it constructed the ordinance on the basis of the precedent provided by and in a manner parallel to <br /> North Carolina's dangerous dog law(674.1),which usesthe notion"willful trespass" aswell. <br /> 2 The diagram was not intended to become part of the ordinance but rather to serve as instrument staff would use <br /> in analyzing the"totality of circumstances" in particular cases. <br />