New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

A slightly unusual dog bite incident occurred at Dulles international Airport in Virginia this month. A four-year-old child was attacked and bitten by a Customs and Border Protection dog.

The attack occurred in the baggage claim area. Customs and Border Protection personnel say they're not sure why the dog attacked the child. However, it seems that the dog bit the girl on the abdomen, leaving her with serious lacerations. The girl's mother tries to pull the dog off her child, but failed. The dog's handler also tried break up the attack, but was unsuccessful. The dog had bitten into the child's abdomen, and just wouldn't let go. The little girl had to be rushed to a local hospital for treatment. She received close to 20 stitches on her abdomen.

According to Customs and Border Protection personnel, incidents involving dog bite attacks are relatively rare.

Any dog bite incident that involves children always touches me personally. As a father and New Jersey dog bite attorney, I feel for parents whose children suffer through a terrifying dog attack. For a four-year-old child, any dog bite incident is terrifying. Children are more vulnerable to dog bite incidents because of their trusting nature and small size. Larger breeds or more aggressive ones, are likely to consider little children as toys, or even worse, prey. In fact, most dog bites in the United States involve children between the age of five and nine.

No matter what the circumstances of this particular attack, it seems highly likely that there was negligence at some level here.

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey dog bite lawyer representing injured victims of dog bites in Monmouth County, Bergen County, Passaic County, Ocean County and across the state of New Jersey.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Christmas holiday seems to have been a particularly painful time for a number of families dealing with serious dog bite attacks in New Jersey and around the country.

In Florida just a few days before Christmas, a 20-month-old boy was killed in an attack involving a Rottweiler. The boy, Dallas Walter, was at a birthday party in Pasco County. According to the Pasco County Sheriff’s office, the boy had dropped a cookie, and was just bending to pick it up when the Rottweiler attacked him.

The dog, which was not registered or even neutered, belonged to a distant relative.   According to the dog’s owner, they just received the dog two months ago through a newspaper ad, and have no idea whether the dog has behavioral problems. Pasco County officials are now trying to get in touch with the dog’s original owner. The dog has since been euthanized.

According to Dallas’s father, the dog was meant to be chained in the backyard, but seemed to have gotten loose. Not surprisingly, he wants criminal charges filed against the owner.

It is an incredibly tragic time for the family of this little boy. I don’t know the exact circumstances of this attack, what kind of conditions the dog had been kept in, and how it was able to enter the home. However, Rottweilers tend to be often linked to dog bite attacks. It’s important to remember though that even the friendliest little Pomeranians can become ferocious if they have been chained with no food and little exercise. Most dog bite cases ultimately come down to irresponsible and negligent ownership, and unfortunately, it’s innocent victims who are left injured and traumatized.  

Scott Grossman is a New Jersey dog bite lawyer representing injured victims of dog bite attacks in Monmouth, Bergen, Passaic and Ocean Counties, and across New Jersey.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

It seems to be the month for celebrity pooches displaying bad behavior. This month, singer Jennifer Lopez and her husband were sued over a dog attack on a stewardess. Also this month, former NY Jets quarterback Joe Namath had his dog declared dangerous. The dog, a Labrador Retriever named Leo has apparently bitten three people in a period of two years.

Leo must now be muzzled and leashed when he goes out for a walk, and he is no longer allowed to roam the yard outside his owner’s home. When unleashed, he must be placed in a secure enclosure, and must be locked up when Namath has company. Namath must also place a dangerous dog sign on his property. Leo will also have to wear a special dog tag designating him as a dangerous dog.

Every year, an animal control officer will visit the home to ensure compliance.  If Leo bites another person, he could be declared vicious, and put down. According to Namath’s attorney, he may appeal the sentence. 

Namath’s dogs have been linked to several reports of attacks since 2007.

• In May 2007, a UPS driver was attacked by a bunch of dogs on the property. Leo was apparently one of the dogs that bit the driver.
• In February 2009, a contractor working on the house was attacked and bitten on the wrist.
• In May 2008, a home nurse was bitten by one of the dogs.
• In August, a landscaper became the most recent victim of a dog bite on the property.

However, Namath has never admitted that his dogs ever attacked anyone. As a New Jersey dog bite lawyer, that doesn’t surprise me one bit. I often see dog owners continue to remain in a state of denial for days and weeks after an attack has occurred.

It’s also encouraging to see how Palm Beach County authorities have handled the situation. Earlier this year, the county made it possible for a dog to be declared dangerous if it attacked just one pet, instead of the earlier two. Animal control officials are also developing a website that will allow residents to see how close they live to a dangerous dog.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Officials in Holland Township in Huntingdon County have delayed a vote on whether to ban wolf hybrid dogs. The ban was proposed after 6 wolf dogs from a pack of 14 escaped from their owner’s property in September. Under the proposal, the owner will be given 30 days time to remove his wolf dogs from Holland Township, or face fines.

On September 6^th, the wolf dogs escaped through what police believe was a damaged fence. It was the fourth time this year that some of the dogs have escaped from the owner Cliff Zager’s home. The dogs didn’t attack any people. Of the 6 dogs that escaped, five were found within a few hours, while the fifth returned home a few days later. One of the dogs however, killed a neighbor’s cat.

Township authorities have delayed a vote while they decide what to do. Opinion is mixed. There have been locals speaking in favor of allowing the dogs to stay because they are not more dangerous than other dog breeds. However, Cliff Zager’s neighbors are justifiably anxious about another escape. The dogs have escaped 4 times thus far, and neighbors are worried that their children could be at risk from an attack. Several local residents want the animals banned from Holland Township.

Wolf dogs are a hybrid derived from mating a dog and a wolf. Typically, these kinds of hybrids can need more training and socialization. Much of the challenge in raising a wolf dog can depend on how much percentage of “wolf” is in the genes. Generally, the more wolf percentage the dog has, the more aggressive it may be. According to experts, wolf dogs tend to be good at escaping confined surroundings, because they need exposure to different situations and people. They may also have several features that may differentiate them from “regular” dogs. For instance, wolf dogs may not be as eager to please as a regular dog.

As of now, there is no approved Rabies vaccine for wolf dogs. What that means is that if a wolf dog is involved in a bite incident, it can be confiscated or euthanized even if it has been vaccinated properly.

As a New Jersey dog bite lawyer, I believe that the safety of a community and its children should be placed above all else.  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

As a New Jersey dog bite lawyer, I often see how victims are subjected to blame and accusations of negligence or even aggression, when they have been subjected to a vicious attack by a dog. While I admit that there may be cases of provoked dog attacks, very often these attacks can happen with little provocation.

A 5-year-old girl in Plymouth, Pennsylvania is looking at spending several weeks in hospital after serious throat injuries in a dog bite attack. The girl was bitten at the Maple Acre Farms establishment by a German Shepherd that belonged to the proprietor of the establishment. The dog was apparently unleashed, and walking about the property freely. The girl was bitten on the neck, and left with serious injuries. She suffered severe damage to her vocal chords, a punctured larynx and has also undergone a tracheotomy. This little girl is currently hooked on to a ventilator.

The dog owner has admitted to police that his dog had been involved in bite attacks earlier. In fact, records show that the dog has bitten people on at least three previous occasions. In the most recent attack, the dog ended up almost biting off the victim’s ear.

There seems to have been nothing that the little girl here did to provoke an attack. She had seen the dog on previous visits to the property, and had even petted it earlier.  Her mother says they had no reason to believe the dog could turn vicious, because it was walking about freely, and unleashed.  They had no way of knowing that the dog had been involved in other attacks before.

This little girl is looking at not just up to a month in hospital, undergoing extensive treatment for her mutilated throat and neck, but also a lifetime of trauma and fear because of this attack. In New Jersey, I often find that we are too quick to blame victims of dog bites without knowing all the facts. Many times, dogs that are involved in bite attacks have been involved in attacks earlier, and owners have failed to leash their dogs properly.  While no one is blaming the dog here, to any New Jersey dog bite lawyer, it would seem that the owner of the German Shepard was extremely negligent in letting a dog with a history of aggression walk about freely, and unleashed.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The owner of the pit bull accused of terrorizing the community by biting five people in one day told a Parsippany New Jersey Municipal Court Judge that his dog had been provoked by passers-by.

The owner of the pit bull appeared in court to plead not guilty to the three charges lodged against him for the April 2 2008 attacks by his Pit bull. The victims were treated and released from the hospital for mostly superficial bites. 

Municipal Prosecutor said the state intended to have the dog declared "potentially dangerous," which he said was the "proper, prudent thing to pursue" given the rampage the dog went on outside the Lake Hiawatha branch of the public library.

The judge said the dog owner was offering a defense, which is something for him to do at trial, and asked again whether he understood the potential consequences of a finding of guilty. The owner said he believed the township was seeking "to put the dog down."

That the pit bull will not likely be destroyed did not sit well with one of the victims, who attended the hearing. He described the horror of trying to pull the dog off another victim only to have the pit bull bite him on his leg before charging his 13-year-old daughter. "I want to tell the judge what I went through," he said. "Trust me, it's too dangerous."

Parsippany's animal control officer, said… "Our concern is for public safety and we don't want people mugged in the street by pit bulls -- and that's just what happened,"  As reported in The Star -Ledger.  Please read more.

It is important to understand the differences in New Jersey’s laws pertaining to the municipal court’s role after a dog bite in declaring a dog “vicious” vs. declaring a dog “potentially dangerous”. The requisite standard of proof that the municipal court judge must follow in both situations requires a finding by the court by what is called “clear and convincing evidence”.  The main difference in the statute would be that if a dog had killed or caused “serious bodily injury” to a person it would be deemed vicious but if the dog caused “bodily injury”  to a person and poses a serious threat of bodily injury or death to a person, or poses a threat of serious bodily injury or death to a person it shall be deemed potentially dangerous. It is important to note that if the dog was provoked then the provocation would be a defense to the court’s declaring a dog either vicious or potentially dangerous. The municipality shall bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that the dog was not provoked. 

The significance of the terminology between the court declaring a dog vicious versus declaring the dog potentially dangerous has nothing to do with the liability of the dog owner but it will determine the dog’s fate. That is if the municipal court declares a dog to be vicious, and no appeal is made of this ruling, the dog shall be destroyed in a humane and expeditious manner.  

 In New Jersey the fact that a dog attacked someone is sufficient to make the owner of the dog strictly liable for the injuries caused to the victim. We do not require the owner to have had knowledge of the viciousness of the dog before the dog owner shall be deemed liable.

I have reproduced the relevant New Jersey dog bite statutes below for your easy reference. Please feel free to browse my website at www.GrossmanJustice.com for more information concerning dog bite law in New Jersey. 

N.J.S.A. 4:19-16.  Liability of owner regardless of viciousness of dog
    The owner of any dog which shall bite a person while such person is on or in  a public place, or lawfully on or in a private place, including the property of  the owner of the dog, shall be liable for such damages as may be suffered by  the person bitten, regardless of the former viciousness of such dog or the  owner's knowledge of such viciousness.

    For the purpose of this section, a person is lawfully upon the private property of such owner when he is on the property in the performance of any duty imposed upon him by the laws of this state or the laws or postal regulations of the United States, or when he is on such property upon the invitation, express or implied, of the owner thereof.

4:19-22.     Dog declared vicious by municipal court; conditions 
    6.  a.  The municipal court shall declare the dog vicious if it finds by clear and convincing evidence that the dog: 

   (1)  killed a person or caused serious bodily injury as defined in N.J.S.2C:11-1(b) to a person; or 

   (2)  has engaged in dog fighting activities as described in R.S.4:22-24 and R.S.4:22-26. 

   b.   A dog shall not be declared vicious for inflicting death or serious bodily injury as defined in N.J.S.2C:11-1(b) upon a person if the dog was provoked.  The municipality shall bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that the dog was not provoked. 

   c.   If the municipal court declares a dog to be vicious, and no appeal is made of this ruling pursuant to section 9 of P.L.1989, c.307 (C.4:19-25), the dog shall be destroyed in a humane and expeditious manner, except that no dog may be destroyed during the pendency of an appeal. 

   L.1989,c.307,s.6; amended 1994,c.187,s.3. 

4:19-23  Dog declared potentially dangerous; conditions.

7. a. The municipal court shall declare a dog to be potentially dangerous if it finds by clear and convincing evidence that the dog:

(1) caused bodily injury as defined in N.J.S.2C:11-1(a) to a person during an unprovoked attack, and poses a serious threat of bodily injury or death to a person, or

(2) severely injured or killed another domestic animal, and

(a) poses a threat of serious bodily injury or death to a person; or

(b) poses a threat of death to another domestic animal, or

(3) has been trained, tormented, badgered, baited or encouraged to engage in unprovoked attacks upon persons or domestic animals.

b. A dog shall not be declared potentially dangerous for:

(1) causing bodily injury as defined in N.J.S.2C:11-1(a) to a person if the dog was provoked, or

(2) severely injuring or killing a domestic animal if the domestic animal was the aggressor.

For the purposes of paragraph (1) of this subsection, the municipality shall bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that the dog was not provoked.

L.1989,c.307,s.7; amended 1994, c.187, s.4; 2002, c.24.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks