In December 2021, state police stopped a woman on Route 195.
Troopers claim that they observed the woman driving her Jeep Wrangler in an “erratic” way.
According to court documents, the woman “claimed that her dog jumping around the Jeep was the cause of her problematic driving.”
At trial, the judge was not persuaded by this defense, and the woman was convicted of negligent operation of a motor vehicle.
She appealed and today the Appeals Court issued a slip opinion upholding the lower court’s decision.
On the issue of the allegedly disruptive pooch, the justices wrote,
the defendant’s failure to secure her dog while driving was further evidence of her negligent operation. See G. L. c. 90, § 13 (“No person, when operating a motor vehicle, shall permit to be on or in the vehicle or on or about [her] person anything which may interfere with or impede the proper operation of the vehicle . . . .”); Morse v. Sturgis, 262 Mass. 312, 314 (1928) (“If the [judge] found it to be a fact that the defendant drove the car accompanied by a dog, that fact did not relieve her from using due care under all the circumstances” to ensure dog did not interfere with proper operation of vehicle.)
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.