Animal Law
Texas Court Nibbles on State’s ‘First Free Bite’ Rule
Posted Mar 31, 2008, 02:18 pm CST
By Molly McDonough
In Texas, dogs get a "first free bite," a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card for owners to escape legal liability if their previously gentle pooch gets rough.
But on Friday the state's supreme court ruled that dog owners still have a responsibility to stop an attack once it begins, the Austin American-Statesman reports.
The unanimous and "emphatic" opinion reverses two lower courts, which ruled that Genevia Bushnell couldn't sue Janet Mott, owner of three dogs that attacked her in 2001. Wounds to her legs, arms and back took more than two years to heal. Bushnell had alleged Mott stood and watched the attack, failing to intervene.
"We're ecstatic at the result," Bruce Bennett, Bushnell's appellate lawyer, is quoted saying. "It's your dog, you have a responsibility to try to stop the attack. That's what the court recognized here."
The Texas court didn't address Bushnell's claims, but ruled that a pet owner, "owes a duty to stop the dog from attacking a person after the attack has begun."
The per curiam ruling reinstates Bushnell's $50,000 civil suit against Mott.