OPINION
CREASE,J.
The facts are not in dispute. On the morning of September 30 while running at large in the Village a dog identified as Spot entered under and therewith became entrapped in the lower reaches of a towering steel sculpture known as Cyclone Seven which dominates the plaza overlooking and adjoining the depot of the Norfolk & Pee Dee Railroad. Searching for his charge, the dog's master James B who Is seven years old was alerted by its whines and yelps to discover its plight, whereupon his own vain efforts to deliver it attracted those of a passeroy soon joined by others whose combined attempts to wheedle, cajole, and intimidate the unfortunate animal forth served rather to compound its predicament, driving it deeper into the structure. These futile activities soon assembled a good cross section of the local population, from the usual idlers and senior citizens to members of the Village Board, the Sheriff's office, the Fire Department, and, not surprisingly, the victim's own kind, until by nightfall word having spread to neighboring hamlets attracted not only them in numbers sufficient to cause an extensive traffic jam but members of the local press and an enterprising television crew. Notwithstanding means successfully devised to assuage the dog's pangs of hunger, those of its confinement continued well into the following day when the decision was taken by the full Village Board to engage the Fire Department to enter the structure employing acetylene torches to effect its safe delivery, without considering the good likelihood of precipitating an action for damages by the creator of Cyclone Seven, Mr Szyrk, a sculptor of some wide reputation in artistic circles.
Alerted by the media to the threat posed to his creation, Mr Szyrk moved promptly from his SoHo studio in New York to file for a temporary restraining order 'on a summary showing of its necessity to prevent immediate and irreparable injury' to his sculptural work, which was issued ex parts even as the torches of deliverance were being kindled. All this occurred four days ago.
Given the widespread response provoked by this confrontation in the media at large and echoing as far distant as the deeper South and even Arkansas but more immediately at the site itself, where energies generated by opposing sympathies further aroused by the police presence and that of the Fire Department in full array, the floodlights, vans, and other paraphernalia incident to a fiercely competitive television environment bringing in its train the inevitable placards and displays of the American flag, the venders of food and novelty items, all enhanced by the barks and cries of the victim's own local acquaintance, have erupted in shoving matches, fistfights, and related hostilities with distinctly racial overtones (the dog's master James B and his family are black), and finally in rocks and beer cans hurled at the sculpture Cyclone Seven itself, the court finds sufficient urgency in the main action of this proceeding to reject defendants' assertions and cross motions for the reasons set forth below and grants summary judgment to plaintiff on the issue of his motion for a preliminary injunction to supersede the temporary restraining order now in place.
To grant summary judgment, as explicated by Judge Stanton in Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures et al., Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 requires a court to find that 'there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.' In reaching its decision the court must 'assess whether there are any factual issues to be tried, while resolving ambiguities and drawing reasonable inferences against the moving party' (Knight v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 804 F.2d 9, 11, 2d Circ, 1986, citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2509-11,1986). In plaintiff's filing for a restraining order his complaint alleges, by counts, courses of action to which defendants have filed answers and cross claims opposing motion for a preliminary injunction. The voluminous submissions accompanying these cross motions leave no factual issues concerning which further evidence is likely to be presented at a trial. Moreover, the factual determinations necessary to this decision do not involve conflicts in testimony that would depend for their resolution on an assessment of witness credibility as cited infra. The interests of judicial economy being served by deciding the case at its present stage, summary judgment is therefore appropriate.
Naming as defendants the Village Board, the dog's master James B through his guardian ad litem, 'and such other parties and entities as may emerge in the course or this proceeding,' Mr szyrk first alleges animal trespass, summoning in support of this charge a citation from early law holding that 'where my beasts of their own wrong without my will and knowledge break another's close I shall be punished, for I am the trespasser with my beasts' (12 Henry VII, Kielwey 3b), which exhibit the court, finding no clear parallel in the laws of this Commonwealth, dismisses as ornamental. Concerning plaintiff's further exhibit of Village Code 21 para. 6b (known as 'the leash law'), we take judicial notice of defendants' response alleging that, however specific in wording and intent, this ordinance appears more honored in the breach, in that on any pleasant day well known members of the local dog community are to be observed in all their disparity of size, breed, and other particulars ambling in the raffish camaraderie of sailors ashore down the Village main street and thence wherever habit and appetite may take them undeterred by any citizen or arm of the law. Spot, so named for the liver colored marking prominent on his loin, is described as of mixed breed wherein, from his reduced stature, silken coat, and 'soulful' eyes, that of spaniel appears to prevail. His age is found to be under one year. Whereas in distinguishing between animals as either mansuetae or ferae naturae Spot is clearly to be discovered among the former vby custom devoted to the service of mankind at the time and in the place in which It is kept' and thus granted the indulgence customarily accorded such domestic pets, and further whereas as in the instant case scienter is not required (Weaver v. National Biscuit Co., 125 F.2d 463, 7th Circ, 1942; Parsons v. Manser, 119 Iowa 88, 93 N.W. 86,1903), such indulgence is indicative of the courts' retreat over the past century from strict liability for trespass (Sanders v. Teape & Swan, 51 L.T. 263, 1884; Olson v. Pederson, 206 Minn. 415, 288 N.W. 856,1939), we find plaintiff's allegation on this count without merit (citation omitted).
On the related charge of damages brought by plaintiff the standard for preliminary relief must first be addressed. Were it to be found for plaintiff that irreparable harm has indeed been inflicted upon his creation, and that adequate remedy at law should suffice in the form of money damages, in such event the court takes judicial notice in directing such claim to be made against the Village Board and the dog's master in tandem, since as in the question posed by the Merchant of Venice (I, iii, 122) 'Hath a dog money?' the answer must be that it does not. However, as regards the claim that the dog Spot, endowed with little more than milk teeth however sharp, and however extreme the throes of his despair, can have wreaked irreparable harm upon his steel confines this appears to be without foundation. Further to this charge, defendants respond, and the court concurs, citing plaintiff's original artistic intentions, that these steel surfaces have become pitted and acquired a heavy patina of rust following plaintiff's stated provision that his creation stand freely exposed to the mercy or lack thereof of natural forces, wherewith we may observe that a dog is not a boy, much less a fireman brandishing an acetylene torch, but nearer in its indifferent ignorance to those very forces embraced in the pathetic fallacy and so to be numbered among them. We have finally no more than a presumption of damage due to the inaccessibility of this inadvertent captive's immediate vicinity, and failing such evidentiary facts we find that the standards for preliminary relief have not been met and hold this point moot.