My Dog Wouldn’t Hurt A Flea. Intentionally. –by Deborah Turner, CPCU, AAI
REGARDLESS OF HOW YOUR DOG INJURES A PERSON or another animal, you will be held liable. To believe that your dog will never bite is setting them up to do so because all dogs are animals and given the right circumstance they could do the unexpected. But your dog has never shown aggression towards anyone. Most dogs will never injure a person in their lives and the odds that your dog will bite may be close to the odds of winning the lottery. But your dog doesn’t have to bite to cause an injury. Consider the following scenarios: Your elderly neighbor returns from a long trip and you go
over to welcome her home. You closed the door behind you, but it didn’t quite latch. Your dog sees who you are visiting and just has to greet her as well. With the exuberance we all love them for, your pal noses the door open, bounds across the yard, misjudges the distance and accidentally bumps against your neighbor who falls and breaks her hip. The medical bills could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. A visiting child is told many times not to tease your dog, but he continues. It is a bit uncomfortable since his parents
will not back you up. Finally, in an effort to make the teasing stop, your dog reaches up with his/her paw just as the child leans forward. Instead of the intended outcome, the paw con- nects with the corner of the child’s eye and does further dam- age as the paw pulls away. Many insurance companies have removed animal liability
from their homeowner’s policies, or limit the maximum they will pay for any one claim. Keep in mind this does not apply just to dogs but any animal you own. There are 83,000,000 dogs in the USA and only about
1,000,000 bites by those dogs annually. Which makes it reason- able to think that your dog will never bite another person or animal. But the fastest growing area of liability claims is not from dog bites, but rather the unintentional injuries caused by dogs being dogs.
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Carefully review your homeowners, renters or umbrella policies to be sure that animal liability is still included in your policy. If not, there is now a policy available to protect against potential liability. You may get a quote and purchase it at
www.dogbitequote.com.
Florida Animal Law Updates.
Dionne Blaessing, Esq. attended the Florida Bar Annual meeting this past June in Orlando, and reports on the following for readers of The New Barker: The great news for animal lovers is
that the Florida Bar Animal Law Committee, formed in 2004, has been recognized as a Florida Bar Section effective July 1, 2016. This is wonderful news for attorneys who practice in the animal law area, as well as for the entire community of Florida citizens who care passionately about animals including res- cue advocates, pet owners, equine enthusiasts, pet and barn related business owners, and the like. Attorneys and owners who have
been involved in animal law cases have long recognized that the cost of litiga- tion outweighs possible damage recovery because the law considers pets as replaceable personal property. Also, the criminal code covering abuse to animals is a low priority to law enforcement often because the statute or ordinance is written without teeth. The current Florida civil statutes do not provide attorney fees or sufficient sanctions therefore the available legal options are underutilized. As a Florida Bar Section, animal
law attorneys have the advantage of 1) A community of lawyers to assist in
www.TheNewBarker.com
developing their individual cases; 2) Better status recognition to encourage legislative changes to existing legislation and administrative rules; 3) A stronger position to create new legislation to better the lives of animals and those that care for them. Following the morning committee
meeting, Gregory Steube, FL. REP., David Aronberg, State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit and former Fl. Senator, and Dana Young, Fl. REP, addressed status updates and concerns about: 1) Fl. St. 413.08 Defining Service Dogs specifically addressing concerns about the enforcement of misdemeanor penal- ty in its current form; 2) Ch. 2016-018 Florida’s Unattended Persons and Animals in Motor Vehicles known as the “Hot Car Bill,” addressing conditions that give protection to the Good Samaritan (see The New Barker, Spring 2016 Paw Law article), 3) The Greyhound Decoupling Bill’s fail- ure to pass; 4) Changes to the Fl. St. 762.12 Severe Injuries Caused By Dog euthanasia requirement provision of the Florida Statute (Ch. 2016-016) (see The New Barker, Spring 2016 Paw Law article.) Sherry Schlueter, a detective with the Humane Society of the United
States, addressed the link between violent abuse, including adult sexual predatory activity on children, and its link to simi- lar behavior perpetrated on animals. She demonstrated that the family pet is abused not only as part of the abuser’s pathology but also as the abuser’s tool of control against human members of the family. She argues for early intervention with the intention of including the sta- tus of the pet as one of the innocent victims for whom protection and safety should be afforded. The discussion included reference to the House Bill, HR. 1258 “The Pet and Women Safety Act” sponsored by Representative Katherine M. Clark with the Senate Bill version, S. 1559, sponsored by Senator Kelly Ayotte currently progressing through committee review in 114th Congress 2015-2016. We need to keep an eye on this Bill. Matthew Dietz, Esq. discussed the
law pertaining to emotional support dogs, service animals, an area of law in which he has created strong legal prece- dence under the FHA and ADA.
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Please add the following to your list of infor- mational sites:
www.facebook.com/Florida BarALC, and
www.floridabar.org. Look for the Animal Law Section updates.
Summer/Fall 2016 THE NEW BARKER 51
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