In Vitrella v. Rodrigues, 11 AD3d 287 (1st Dept 2004) the plaintiff was bitten by the defendant's dog who was chained in the front yard, but slipped out of its leash. The Court dismissed a claim of strict liability, holding that there was no evidence of "vicious propensity", and that "absent such evidence, plaintiffs' negligence claim had to be based on a distinct act that the defendant should have done or refrained from doing in the particular circumstances or some distinct enhanced duty". Id. at 287, 535. However, the holding in Vitrella stands for the proposition that liability based on a violation of the leash law is not strict liability, but common law negligence. The above quote from Vitrella is simply a variant of the standard definition of negligence: doing an act a reasonably prudent person would not have done, or failing to do an act a reasonably prudent person would have done. In Vitrella, it was not shown that the owner did not act reasonably, or that the dog slipping his chain was the result of any negligence on the part of its owner.