A court has ruled that a farmer in Tyrol has to pay over 76,000 EUR plus a monthly allowance to the family of a German tourist killed by his cows while walking her dog in an Alpine pasture.
The 45-year-old German tourist, not named due to local privacy laws, was walking her dog on a lead in the Austrian state of Tyrol when she was attacked by the cows and killed.
The court heard that the cows had spotted the dog and attacked because they wanted to protect their calves, and the woman had tried to protect her dog from the animals, resulting in her death.
The incident took place in 2014 but has now ended up with the Austrian Supreme Court who have issued the final ruling. Despite saying that the woman who died must share some blame, the farmer still has to pay 76,000 EUR (67,000 GBP) to her widower and child, plus a monthly pension of 782 EUR (690 GBP).
The Alpine farmer’s lawyer, Ewald Jenewein, is not happy with this judgement, saying: “The initial judgement spoke of the Alpine farmer being the only one at fault, even though he had put up warning signs along the hiking trail!”
For him, a fundamental question had gone unanswered, namely the “negligent stimulation of animals.”
As a result of the publicity around the case, the country’s Civil Code has been amended to render pedestrians on Alpine pastures responsible for their actions too but for the lawyer, “massive legal uncertainty” remains, namely regarding “the question of fencing.”
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News
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