California Injury Blog

An animal control officer will have to undergo surgery after he suffered injuries to his legs and arm, mauled by a pit-bull at a Lakewood home. The 28-year-old officer, who has not been identified, reportedly went to the home to speak to the resident about having too many pit-bulls and address certain dog violations at that residence, according to an article in the Daily Breeze.

The dog owner, who had five pit-bulls, agreed to let go of three. But when the officer tried to take the dogs, one of the pit-bulls attacked him, biting him in his legs and arm. The officer has a break in his knuckle, deep cuts and tears. Officials are concerned about possible nerve damage and infection.

There is no question that this dog bit victim will be entitled to workers compensation from his employer as well as from the dog owner. It is outrageous that this dog owner had five pit-bulls and tragic that this animal control officer got brutally attacked when he was trying to do his job.

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Two Buena Park men are recovering after they were bitten by a pit-bull while taking a walk in the gated community of College Park, according to a news article in The Orange County Register. Larry Zimmerman, 43, and his Siberian husky were the first to be attacked by the pit-bull. Then the dog attacked Zimmerman’s neighbor James Kim, 59 and his wife who were taking an evening walk down the street, the newspaper reported.

Zimmerman suffered bites on both of his legs and his left arm while Kim got five stitches in his chest. Zimmerman told the newspaper that he is a dog-lover himself but cannot understand why dog owners cannot control their dogs. As personal injury attorneys who have represented victims of dog attacks, we understand Mr. Zimmerman’s point of view.

We are ardent supporters of cities and county agencies holding dog owners responsible for their negligence. In this case, this pit-bull and another boxer which was apparently not involved in the attacks, were running loose attacking these unsuspecting residents who were doing nothing more than taking a relaxing evening stroll. What a rude shock for them!

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Two small children were severely injured in a frightening dog attack in Las Vegas after two pit-bulls escaped from their yard and pounced on the 5-year-old boys. One child was bitten on the face and another on the leg, according to Eyewitness News reports. Latest reports on the news station’s Web site say the boys are doing well now although one of them had to get 152 stitches on his face.

The dog owner in this case, will most likely face criminal charges, officials told Eyewitness News. Officials say the pit-bulls were running loose without any rabies vaccines or tags, which are all violations of Clark County laws. The animals have also been deemed vicious, which means the dog owner, Carlos Santiago, could face 12 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

Continue reading "Two 5-year-old Boys Hurt In Las Vegas Dog Attack, Dog Owner Could Face Charges" »

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The Long Beach City Council, in response to recent vicious dog attacks in the city, has approved the creation of a new dangerous dog ordinance that would include stiffer penalties for dog owners, mandatory education on responsible pet ownership for owners who violate the law and implanting microchips on impounded dogs.

According to a news article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram, council members emphasized that they want to focus on how to better educate dog owners and make them responsible for pets that are under their care. Under the new ordinance, which is supposed to be an improvement on existing dangerous dog laws, the city will also impose tougher leash laws penalizing owners of animals that leave their property and encroach on neighboring yards.

The new law will also allow the city to impose fines or level criminal charges against owners of dogs that have attempted to bite, attack or threaten a human or another animal. The law will require owners facing criminal charges to take mandatory dog ownership responsibility classes.

Continue reading "Long Beach City Council Votes In Favor of Tougher Dangerous Dog Laws" »

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A 3-year-old boy in Hillsboro, Oregon, is in serious condition after being bitten and mauled by two large dogs in Washington County, according to a news report. Anthony Jewell is still in intensive care after the Bullmastiff mixed breed dogs, apparently with no history of vicious and violent behavior, lunged at the boy and attacked him in the yard of a house in rural Washington County where he was playing.

Both attacking dogs were reportedly shot by their owner before animal control officers even arrived on scene. The dogs also bit three adults who tried to separate the toddler from the frenzied dogs.

Continue reading "Dog's Owner "Does the Right Thing" After Dogs Attack Toddler" »

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An off-duty police chief and two neighborhood women had to fend off two vicious dogs as they brutally attacked a woman on the street in the city of Blythe, the Palo Verde Times reports. According to the article Blythe Police Chief Robert Whitney and two other women, who happened to be passing by, rescued 58-year-old Jilyne Gouvion who was viciously attacked by two American bulldogs while walking her friend’s dog.

Elaine Merritt and her friend stopped as they saw the commotion with the chief trying to fend off the aggressive bulldogs. The ladies immediately acted and were able to save the Australian Shepherd that Gouvion was walking, which was also being attacked by the bulldogs. The smaller dog was covered in blood when the women rushed it into their car, the article said. Whitney told the paper that one of the bulldogs must have weighed about 100 pounds.

Gouvion reportedly suffered severe bites and cuts to her hands and legs as a result of the dog attack. The dogs apparently first attacked the Australian Shepherd and then turned their attention to the woman as she tried to protect her friend’s dog. The dog’s owner, 37-year-old George Castro, not only got cited at the scene, but is facing additional felony charges relating to his dogs being a public nuisance, the newspaper reported. Both dogs have been quarantined at the local animal shelter and a decision will be made later about their fate.

Continue reading "Community Heroes in Blythe Save Dog Bite Victim From Vicious Attack" »

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An off-duty police chief and two neighborhood women had to fend off two vicious dogs as they brutally attacked a woman on the street in the city of Blythe, the Palo Verde Times reports. According to the article Blythe Police Chief Robert Whitney and two other women, who happened to be passing by, rescued 58-year-old Jilyne Gouvion who was viciously attacked by two American bulldogs while walking her friend’s dog.

Elaine Merritt and her friend stopped as they saw the commotion with the chief trying to fend off the aggressive bulldogs. The ladies immediately acted and were able to save the Australian Shepherd that Gouvion was walking, which was also being attacked by the bulldogs. The smaller dog was covered in blood when the women rushed it into their car, the article said. Whitney told the paper that one of the bulldogs must have weighed about 100 pounds.

Gouvion reportedly suffered severe bites and cuts to her hands and legs as a result of the dog attack. The dogs apparently first attacked the Australian Shepherd and then turned their attention to the woman as she tried to protect her friend’s dog. The dog’s owner, 37-year-old George Castro, not only got cited at the scene, but is facing additional felony charges relating to his dogs being a public nuisance, the newspaper reported. Both dogs have been quarantined at the local animal shelter and a decision will be made later about their fate.

Continue reading "Community Heroes in Blythe Save Dog Bite Victim From Vicious Attack" »

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Here is a story that is both interesting and deeply concerning. It’s about two neighbors in Chico. One has a permanent pack of pit-bulls as pets, one particularly dangerous pit-bull called Princess. The other neighbor, who shares the driveway with this dog owner, has been bitten by the same dog twice, which has attacked him unprovoked leaving him with a permanent scar on his body.

According to an article in the Chico Enterprise, city officials have agreed that this vicious dog is to be confined in the property and muzzled in public, but not be put down. Obviously, neighbors are concerned that someone is going to die because of this dog in their community. Many neighbors and witnesses who have seen the dog in action say it is potentially dangerous, the article states.

City officials filed a complaint and requested a hearing regarding Tyler Doman’s dog after the victim, Doman’s neighbor, Niels Cecil Nielsen had been twice attacked and bitten by the dog. The Domans have reportedly agreed to all demands made by the city including keeping the pit-bull confined and muzzled, getting the dog licensed, vaccinated, micro-chipped for identification and getting it spayed.

Continue reading "Owner Of Dangerous Dog Must Be Prepared To Assume Financial Responsibility" »

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Here is a brief compilation of dog bite incidents and dog attacks from all over the country.

Vicious dog attack: A man in Wapato, Wash. reportedly lost his leg in a vicious dog attack and is still recovering from his injuries. According to an article in KIMA TV’s Web site, Lew Yallup was initially taken to the intensive care unit, but is now in satisfactory condition. The attack occurred when a pack of dogs attacked Yallup as he picked up cans on a city street. The dog owner faces four years in jail for the attack on Yallup and could pay up to $20,000 in penalties.

Rottweiler attack: A 6-year-old North Carolina boy had to undergo surgery after he was bitten by a neighbor’s Rottweiler, according to this news article. The boy, who was not named, was bitten in the face, neck and leg when he was playing in the neighbor’s backyard during a party with another child. The neighbor reportedly shot and killed the dog before police arrived.

Continue reading "Dog Attack Round-Up" »

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A Santa Rosa woman, who was badly injured and scarred in a ferocious dog attack two years ago, has received a $1 million settlement, an amount that equals the upper limit of the dog owner’s insurance policy. According to an article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Wendy Rydberg received $900,000 and her husband and two children got $33,000 each, avoiding what promised to be an emotional jury trial.

The victim, Rydberg, who spent four days in the hospital and underwent three surgeries to fix the scars on her nose, cheek and lips, told the newspaper that she is relieved by the settlement and feels that she can now move on with her life. The incident reportedly occurred on April 6, 2006, when an American bulldog owned by 19-year-old Emmelia Dale-Pincus bit Rydberg on her face as she was walking her own dog.

Continue reading "Sonoma County Woman Gets $1 million Settlement in Vicious Dog Bite Case" »

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Nancy Matthews, a veterinarian, is suing the San Diego Department of Animal Services for injuries suffered during an attack by two boxer dogs more than a year ago. She has filed an amendment to the lawsuit she filed last November, according to the North County Times. Matthews said she spent six days in the hospital after the attack, which left her with bites and scars over most of her body.

The civil lawsuit alleges that county animal officials knew the dogs had previously bitten two people and didn’t take appropriate action to prevent them from attacking again. After the original filing the county’s counsel requested a dismissal of the lawsuit arguing that the department was not negligent or legally responsible for the dog’ actions. The court ruled in favor of the county and gave Matthews an opportunity to amend her lawsuit.

County counsel George Brewster has stated, even before seeing the amended lawsuit, that he plans to ask the court once again to dismiss the Matthews lawsuit.

There is not way that Matthews is going to prevail in this lawsuit. It will have taken some clever drafting of the amended lawsuit by her attorney to get by Brewster’s next request of the court to dismiss this lawsuit. Even if she does get by the county’s motion to dismiss the complaint, she’ll have tough time proving her case. If she fails, she will be subject to paying the county’s costs of defending itself.

For someone to be liable for this dog attack, they must either be an owner of the dogs (strict liability) or a keeper of the dogs with knowledge of the dogs’ dangerous propensities yet did not do enough to protect Matthews (negligence).

Continue reading "Dog Attack Victim Sues San Diego Dept. Of Animal Services" »

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An 8-year-old boy, who suffered severe dog bite injuries in Fontana, reportedly told police that someone intentionally set the dog on him. The boy and his brother who were walking down a neighborhood street told officers that a teen inside a house opened a door and let a 65-pound pit bull out the door and the dog in turn pounced on the boy and ripped his face apart, according to an article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

The boy suffered severe bite injuries on his face and was treated in the hospital and released. The newspaper reported that he had to get a number of stitches on his face. The dog ran back into its owner’s home after the attack and the owner reportedly tried to hide the animal in the backyard. However, animal control officials were able to locate the dog and tried to corner it, but the pit-bull was reportedly still very aggressive and charged at them even after they fired a bean bag round and used a taser gun against it. Finally, they had to shoot and kill the dog.

The dog owner could certainly be held liable in this case and should face criminal charges if the attack was intentional as the victim says. It is really sad that a little child had to undergo the trauma of a dog bite attack. He will probably also need plastic surgery on his scars. We’ve observed that even with plastic surgery some scars never go away.

Continue reading "Two Southern California Dog Bite Attacks Reported This Week" »

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A 20-month-old San Jose girl and her grandmother were reportedly attacked and badly bitten by their pet dogs believed to be pitbull-boxer mixes, according to an Associated Press news report posted on KESQ TV’s Web site. The toddler’s grandmother, 48-year-old Elizabeth Cinco, was reportedly bitten on the neck, ear and right leg when she tried to fight off the dogs and protect her granddaughter, Anna Leigh Cinco.

The child had to have part of her lip and chin reattached at a clinic in San Francisco, the article said. A news report posted in the San Diego News Tribune, initially said only one of the dogs bit the pair. But an article in the San Jose Mercury News clarified the chaotic incident, which ended up traumatizing the entire family.

One of the dogs first attacked the grandmother, who threw Anna into a couch to protect her. But the dog pounced on the little girl ripping her lip down to her jaw line, the newspaper reported. Another dog also tried to attack Anna’s 9-month-old brother, but the parents were able to fend off the dogs and get the situation under control.

Continue reading "Pet Dogs Bite Causing Major Injuries to San Jose Toddler and Grandmother" »

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Kelly Caldwell was bitten and mauled to death by four dogs on Christmas night – all said to be pit-bulls. Now, even as people are placing flowers and stuffed animals on the street in Yermo where the ground is still stained with Caldwell’s blood, her family members are trying to make sense of this brutal mauling and investigators are trying to determine if criminal charges must be filed against the dog and its owners, according to an article in the Desert Dispatch.

Officers had to shoot two of the dogs, which they say were acting aggressively and quarantined two others. They learned later that all four dogs were owned by two men who lived in the same house on that street. What do the men have to say? That their dogs have nipped trespassers before, but that they would never jump over the fence and attack someone who was just passing by, according to another news report in the Desert Dispatch.

Investigators say they have no evidence yet to file criminal charges. But family members who saw Caldwell lying on the street said her legs looked like they were run over by a car and pieces of her body were scattered around the scene. Several neighbors told police that the dogs were aggressive and terrorized the neighborhood, a report in the Riverside Press Enterprise states. There are no documented complaints against the dogs.

Continue reading "Fatal Dog Bite Victim’s Family Struggles to Make Sense Of Brutal Mauling" »

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A 45-year-old Barstow woman is dead after being attacked by a pack of pit-bulls on the street on Christmas evening. According to a news article in the Desert Dispatch, the dogs (officials are still trying to determine how many) surrounded Caldwell and attacked her.

Police found Caldwell lying on the street around 9:30 p.m. Two of the pit-bulls that reportedly returned to the scene tried to attack officers who were trying to help Caldwell and determine what happened. Police shot both pit-bulls. Animal control officials took two other dogs, while another one is said to be at large.

Officials are still trying to determine who the dogs belonged to although they know at least two of the animals belonged to neighbors. They have also taken DNA samples from the two dead dogs, which confirm that they attacked the woman, an article posted on the local ABC station’s Web site reports. The two live dogs are being held as evidence, but will be released to their owners if it is determined that they did not attack Caldwell.

Police detectives are looking into whether the dogs’ owners knew whether the animals had any history of violence. If the dogs were dangerous and the owners knew about it, they could face criminal charges, officials told ABC. No arrests were made immediately, FOX News reports.

Continue reading "Pack Of Pit-bulls Maul and Kill Barstow Woman" »

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This is one of those stories that you cannot even imagine happening to you or someone you know. Two LAPD officers are being honored for saving the life of a man who was being mauled by a pit-bull, according to a news article in the Los Angeles Daily News.

The horrific details of this attack are described in the Daily News article. Detective Mark Hahn and Andy Moody heard the 53-year-old man’s cries for help when they were driving near 97th and Hoover streets. The man was reportedly hiding under a parked car to escape the wrath of a pit-bull.

As the detectives ran to help him, the dog got under the car and bit the man’s leg, then actually dragged him from under the car and mauled him. By this time, people were gathering around to help the poor guy and stop the dog from killing him. Someone threw water on the dog. One of the detectives grabbed a shovel and hit the pit-bull on its head but even that didn’t stop the dog. It continued to maul the man, tearing down the flesh on his face and head!

Continue reading "LAPD Officers Shoot Pit-bull To Save Man’s Life" »

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Sometimes, especially in dog bite cases involving young children, it’s hard to tell what’s scarier – the thought of a large dog viciously attacking the child or the denial of the dog owner who vehemently refuses to believe that his or her “pet” could do something like that. Take the example of this dog owner in Honolulu who denies that her dogs are vicious in spite of the fact that the animals repeatedly attacked children on the beach and she was even sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines in connection with those incidents!

According to an article in The Boston Globe, a jury in Hawaii made a decision against this particular dog owner, Mariko Bereday, and in favor of Keeton Manguso, a 2-year-old boy, giving the boy $856,000 in damages for injuries he suffered when Bereday’s unrestrained Rottweiler attacked the toddler on the beach.

Keeton’s mother, Veronica Tomooka, told the newspaper that she sued not for money, but to have a jury judge this particular dog owner and tell her that she is in fact negligent and liable for injuries her dog caused. And here’s the not-so-surprising part of this story – the dog owner is appealing the jury verdict saying that her dog did not bite the boy and that the photo of the injuries was phony.

Continue reading "Dog Owner Denies Her Dog is Vicious – After Two Attacks On Toddlers" »

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By: Staff Writer

About 5 million people in the United States are injured each year as a result of dog bites. It is way too common and you don’t have to try too hard to find at least a dozen incidents that are serious enough to make their way to the day’s news. Just over the last few days we were able to find numerous dog bite news articles on the Web.

What is shocking is that fatalities are starting to become more and more common in these attacks. And it’s not just babies or toddlers who are the victims. We have grown men and women – who did nothing but pass by a dog; mail carriers are common victims. In fact, Bisnar Chase is representing David Carroll, a veteran mailman, who was mauled by a loose pit-bull in Westminster.

These incidents only reiterate the idea that we must hold dog owners responsible for their pets. If a dog runs loose and attacks or kills an innocent victim, guess who’s liable? The dog owner.

Continue reading "Recent Dog Attacks From Around the World" »

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Dog owners must be held responsible for the full extent of the damages their dogs cause. This is especially so if they know their animals can be dangerous and can seriously injure or even kill someone. Take the recent case of a Westminster woman whose pit-bull, Maggie, attacked a veteran mail carrier causing severe injuries to his face and emotional well being.

David Carroll, who has been a mail carrier for the last 16 years, was the latest unsuspecting victim of one of Sherri Moody’s dogs. Carroll reported that he was delivering mail on his regular route in Westminster when, without warning or a sound, he was attacked from behind and knocked to the ground. Before he knew what was happening he was fighting for his life with a pit-bull on top of him biting and tearing at his face and head. Carroll says that if not for a passerby that jumped in to help, he may not have survived the attack. He said he felt the pit-bull was trying to tear him apart and kill him.

Carroll has a nasty wound from his left eyelid to the side of his nose, up across his eye brow to his forehead and across the middle of his forehead to above his right eye. A triple peanut shell shaped chunk of skin is missing from his forehead. Bite marks are clearly visible just above his nose. The stitches are so obvious and grotesque that he looks like he is auditioning for the part of Lurch in the Munsters.

Mrs. Shirley Carroll, David’s wife, reports that he isn’t sleeping since the attack. She said that in the moments of sleep he does get he constantly has nightmares. He is continually agitated and on edge since coming home from the hospital she said. She is most concerned for his emotional well being.

David Carroll says any time he lays down he sees the dog on top of him, feels the panic he felt and relives the pit-bull attacking him. Based upon the look of the injuries it will take substantial plastic surgery to clean up the physical scars. Based upon his emotional state, he is going need therapy as well.

Carroll said this attack was not totally unforeseen. He has been fearful of the dog for some time. He leaves notes for other mail carriers that deliver to Carroll’s Westminster route when he is off, warning them of this pit-bull.