Dog Bite Injury Lawyer Seeks Damages - Defendants are Unable to Prove Their Dog Did Not Have Vicious Tendencies*

This is an appeal from a lower court where the plaintiff was seeking damages for personal injuries. The lower court denied their motion for judgment dismissing the complaint.

The court here concluded that the order, after some modification, should be affirmed.

The court said that in order to recover in strict liability in tort for damages caused by a dog bite, the plaintiff Oth must establish that the dog had vicious propensities and that the owner knew or should have known of the dog's vicious propensities.

The defendants failed to submit evidence sufficient to establish, prima facie, that their dog did not have vicious propensities or that they did not know or have reason to know of such propensities.

In support of the motion, the defendants merely submitted the deposition testimony of the plaintiff, prepared by her dog bite injury lawyer, who met the dog for the first time minutes before the incident. The defendants did not provide any evidence of their dog's behavior generally and what they knew about the dog's general disposition and behavior.

The lower court properly denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the cause of action sounding in strict liability.

However, the lower court then should have granted the defendants' motion which was for summary judgment dismissing the first cause of action for common-law negligence, as the plaintiff cannot recover on such a cause of action.