Wild Dogs Kill And Maim – A Call To Action

With the news that another child has been killed by wild dogs, animal control departments are again reminded to do their duty or face the consequences. This week in Saskatchewan, Canada, a 10 year-old boy was mauled to death on the Canoe Lake Cree Nation. (See article by clicking here.) Here in California, I have a case in the County of Fresno in which a young lady was mauled by wild dogs when she took a Sunday morning walk past her high school.

Authorities are aware of the wild dog problem in many parts of the country, but often do little or nothing about it. In the case I am handling, one of the defenses by the public entities was that they should not be held responsible because they did not own the dogs! Clearly that missed the point, and the judge threw out the defense.

When animal control departments fail to keep our neighborhoods safe, they must be held accountable. These are the people who will prosecute you criminally if you try to trap or kill any of these dangerous dogs. If they are going to claim a monopoly on controlling the dangerous dog problem, then they better do their job or else bear the full cost of the injuries and damages that can result.

A Child Is Dying – Time To Make An Example Of A Bad Dog Owner

On February 1, 2010, 5 dogs attacked a mother and her 4 children who were walking to the park, in the city of Fontana, California. The dogs were 4 pit bulls and one mastiff. All 5 family members were injured. One child is on life support and is in critical condition today, and another has 237 staples in a leg. The dogs had escaped from their owner’s backyard, having dug holes under the fence. The attack on this family was not provoked.

The police and prosecutors say they are looking into the matter, and have not decided whether criminal charges will be filed. As far as I can see, however, they don’t have to look very hard to find the criminality here. There were too many dogs, they were of breeds known to be powerful, vicious and dangerous, and the dog run or the fence around the yard was not maintained properly. All of that adds up to criminal behavior, and it should be punished in a manner commensurate with the severe impact on this unfortunate family.

Certainly if you have this many dogs, of these breeds, you have to take extra measures to confine them. Don’t we all know that there are laws against dogs trespassing, against dogs running at large, laws that require dogs to be leashed, and laws that require kennels to be licensed? The responsible dog owner appreciates that more than casual measures must be taken to protect the public from dogs like these — this number of dogs, and these breeds.

Even if the victims live, the owner of the dogs that attacked this family should be prosecuted under section 399 subdivision (b) of the Penal Code, which states: “If any person owning or having custody or control of a mischievous animal, knowing its propensities, willfully suffers it to go at large, or keeps it without ordinary care, and the animal, while so at large, or while not kept with ordinary care, causes serious bodily injury to any human being who has taken all the precautions that the circumstances permitted, or which a reasonable person would ordinarily take in the same situation, is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony.”

There are studies which establish that a group of dogs is more dangerous than just one of them. Additionally, we all know that dogs which were created for the specific purpose of violence pose a danger of violence. This does not mean that all pit bulls require extermination, but rather that people who own them must devote sufficient time and energy to taking care of them, and keeping the neighborhood safe from them. I don’t have a problem with the dogs, but with their owners. Put 5 dogs like this together, and you have mischievous animals if you don’t confine them effectively; allowing them to dig under the fence is the equivalent of keeping them without ordinary care. I would prosecute this attack as a felony under section 399 subdivision (b) because there are far too many instances of these dogs hurting people in recent years, implying that this dog owner needs to be made an example of.

If a child dies here, the dog owner should be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter contemplates “negligent acts which are aggravated, reckless and gross and which are such a departure from what would be the conduct of an ordinarily prudent, careful person under the same circumstances as to be contrary to a proper regard for human life [or] danger to human life or to constitute indifference to the consequences of such acts….” Let’s get this straight: it was not an accident that these dogs dug their way out of their owner’s dog run or back yard. It was the owner who put the fence there, the owner who decided it would be cool to own that many pit bulls and a mastiff, and therefore the owner who had to safely confine them at his own peril. By putting up a flimsy fence and not checking to see whether the dogs were digging under it, the dog owner was negligent, his behavior was reckless, it was an extreme departure from how a sensible member of the community would conduct himself, and it indicated a disregard for human life. That would make it involuntary manslaughter if this child dies.

Tell Nebraska Lawmakers To Adopt the Model Dog Bite Statute

A recent decision of the Nebraska Supreme Court created a loophole in the state’s dog bite statute, giving reason for the legislature to adopt the Model Dog Bite Statute.

A prior decision of the Nebraska Supreme Court construed a previous version of the Nebraska dog bite statute. That Court decision, based on the prior statute, said that the statute did not apply to injuries that resulted from a dog’s playful or mischievous actions.

Now, that is a strange interpretation of any dog bite statute. Laws about animals have to be very clear. Either a dog is on a leash, or it isn’t. Whether the dog intended to act playfully or like one of the neighborhood gangsters is never an element of such a law. A dog’s intent is impossible to prove. You can’t cross-examine a dog, and when a dog does something unusual like attack a person, it often happens because of a combination of risk factors (see Dog Attack Danger Scale and Why Dogs Bite People).

The Nebraska State Legislature amended the dog bite statute sometime after that court decision was rendered. The Legislature inserted the word “injury” into the dog bite statute. An “injury” is not an intentional injury, a vicious injury, an accidental injury — it is simply something that produces suffering. The Legislature made this amendment because the lawmakers obviously did not agree with the Court’s prior decision, which limited the statute to vicious actions by a dog.

Despite the clear meaning of the word “injury,” however, this Supreme Court pretended that it was so ambiguous that it required clarification through the legislative materials created at the time that the law was being considered. These materials are referred to as expressing “legislative intent.”A court looks at legislative intent when the legislature’s statute could mean one thing or another thing. It is a legal rule, however, that the court will never consider the legislature’s intent if a statute is clear. That would be unfair to the public, which has access to the statutes, not the lawmakers and their materials.

When the dog bite statute was amended, the Nebraska State Legislature’s written materials did not specifically refer to or repudiate the court’s prior decision. For that reason, in the case of Underhill v. Hobelman the court took the position that the Legislature somehow agreed with the prior decision. Therefore the court said that the prior decision would continue to be the law, despite the amendment which added the word “injury.”

As I indicated above, the prior decision said that the dogbite statute did not apply to actions that were playful and mischievous. Dog bite victims in Nebraska therefore can recover for the first bite only if the insurance defense lawyer cannot show that the actions of the dog were playful or mischievous.

Remember, the Nebraska Supreme Court was interpreting only the dogbite statute of that State. The laws of other states are not affected by this.

If the State of Nebraska enacted the Model Dog Bite Statute, this would not have happened. Therefore I suggest that the people of the state contact their lawmakers and tell them that the statute needs to be amended again, using the wording of the Model Dog Bite Statute. I will testify before the Legislature if it will help to get a proper law passed — I have done this before, and it has helped in other states.

Man Killed By Daughter’s Pit Bulls In Own Home – #2 USA Fatality in 2010

As of this writing, it has been reported that Johnny Wilson, 56, a resident of Chicago Illinois, was killed in his own home by pit bulls being raised by his daughter. There were no witnesses to the attack. (To read more, click here.)

The immediate question is whether the dog is actually killed the man. He was found with numerous bite marks on his body, and authority said that he suffered massive head, chest and upper body trauma. There were 4 adult pit bulls and 2 puppies in the home. However, in the past few years there have been one or 2 cases where people have not been attacked by dogs, but have collapsed as a result of medical conditions, and then were chewed by the dogs. There will be an autopsy later today to determine what exactly happened in this case.

The Director of the Animal Care and Control office was quoted as saying,”dogs don’t normally attack people in their own homes, so there’s a lot to investigate.” That statement is inaccurate and misleading. Going back only one year, the majority of fatal dog attacks in 2009 took place either inside the victim’s home, in his own backyard, or inside the residence of a babysitter or neighbor. A number of victims were killed by their own dogs in their own home.

It is important for the public to understand that the dog bite problem is not caused by stray dogs, but by dogs that we and our neighbors own. Approximately 75% of all dog attacks are inflicted by dogs belonging to the victim’s family, friends, relatives and neighbors. It is important to know this because owning the dog means owning the problem, and owning the solution too. In other words, when it is fully understood that the problem dogs belong to ordinary people — not monster dogs, not criminals — we can start working on ordinary solutions.

The story of Johnny Wilson’s death presents a lot of instructive material, even before all the facts are known. Let’s start with the number of dogs that were involved: four. It is well known that an increase in the number of dogs brings an increase in the amount of risk. More than one dog is a danger factor according to the Dog Attack Danger Scale on www.dogbitelaw.com.

These were pit bulls. This breed presents a higher risk of injury and death than other breeds. The presence of a pit bull, or more than one, also is a danger factor according to the Dog Attack Danger Scale.

The daughter was breeding these dogs. Puppy mills and backyard breeding may account for the increased violence that has been noted in pit bulls and a number of other breeds in recent years. When there is an unusual demand for a certain type of dog, the less ethical breeders and the backyard breeders focus on sales; these types of breeders are unconcerned about undesirable characteristics (such as aggression) of their breeding stock and their puppies. Therefore the breed can change very rapidly, and for the worse.

The solutions are as follows. If you are going to have more than one dog, they need to be controlled more stringently, in a manner appropriate for your household and circumstances. If the 4 dogs are pit bulls, they might be appropriate in an apartment building, and a good degree of control and confinement would be appropriate for a home. And as for breeding, well, that is a serious occupation that requires education and discretion.

From a legal standpoint, the number of dogs living in a place, and the breeding of dogs, can be controlled by zoning laws coupled with stringently enforced, dog licensing ordinances.

It is best to derive from these incidents as much detail as possible, so that we can make necessary corrections in our own behavior and laws. It is not enough to simply chalk this up to yet another pit bull homicide. Like most of the dogs that bite and even kill, these dogs had an owner. Dog owners control the extent of the dog bite epidemic, and ultimately can make things better or worse for our communities.

Ohio Eases Restrictions On Dog Bite Cases

The Supreme Court of Ohio has ruled that a dog bite victim may pursue claims under both the state’s dog bite statute (R.C. 955.28) and a hybrid of the scienter and negligence causes of action, which the court calls “common law negligence.” In a case which involved the canine-inflicted scalping of a little girl, the insurance company for the dog owners had convinced the trial judge that the dog bite victim had to choose between these two remedies, which lead to different measures of legally-awardable damages. The court clarified that both legal theories can be pursued in the same court case.

Unfortunately the court failed to take the opportunity to untangle the dog bite law itself. Ohio’s scienter-negligence hybrid conflates (or “tangles”) the requirements of the common law or scienter cause of action with the general negligence cause of action. The hybrid requires proof of the following elements: (1) the defendant owned or harbored the dog, (2) the dog was vicious, (3) the defendant knew of the dog’s viciousness, and (4) the dog was kept in a negligent manner after the keeper knew of its viciousness.

On a positive note, the court ruled that punitive damages may be awarded in the hybrid action. As a result, dog bite victims in Ohio have a greater chance at recovering not only compensatory damages such as medical bills and pain and suffering, but also punitive damages in cases of egregious conduct on the part of the defendant.