According to the Opinion, the Plaintiff arrived at an animal shelter. While there, the Plaintiff was attacked by a dog. She was bitten on her leg and was also caused to fall. In addition to the suffering the dog bites, the Plaintiff broke both of her ankles in the fall and required surgery on one of her ankles.
After a trial, a jury entered a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff and awarded $40,000.00 but also assessed 50% of comparative negligence against the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiffs filed a post-trial motion asserting that the Defendant did not prove that the Plaintiff was negligent in any way. The Plaintiff argued that, as such, the jury should not have been provided with jury instructions on comparative negligence. The trial court denied the Plaintiff’s Motion for a New Trial and the case was appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
The Commonwealth Court reversed and remanded and held that the trial court erred in instructing the jury on comparative negligence where there was no evidence that the Plaintiff had acted negligently. The appellate court noted that the Plaintiff did not act negligently in allegedly failing to distance herself from a leashed dog that merely jumped towards the Plaintiff as it approached, only to then attack the Plaintiff unexpectedly from behind thereafter.
The court rejected the defense argument that the Plaintiff was negligent in allowing the dog to get close to her, which allowed the dog to attack.
The appellate court noted that, while the Plaintiff may have understood the risks posed by the dog as involving the possibility that the dog would jump at her again, there was no indication for the Plaintiff that a vicious attack would possibly occur. The court noted that the Plaintiff’s previous brief encounter with the dog was not sufficient to put the Plaintiff on notice of the dog’s vicious propensities. The court noted that the previous jump was not, according to the evidence, accompanied by a growl, a snap, or any attempt by the dog to harm the Plaintiff.
Accordingly, the court found that there was no evidence of any negligence on the part of the Plaintiff relative to the dog getting close to the Plaintiff a second time. Therefore, there was no support for the trial court to have given the jury the Comparative Negligence jury instruction.
The case was remanded back for the entry of an Order awarding the Plaintiff the total damages awarded by the jury at trial.
Anyone wishing to review a copy of this non-precedential decision may click this LINK.
Source: The Legal Intelligencer State Appellate Case Alert, www.Law.com (Aug. 19, 2025).
Anyone wishing to review a copy of this non-precedential decision may click this LINK.
Source: The Legal Intelligencer State Appellate Case Alert, www.Law.com (Aug. 19, 2025).
Source of image: Photo by Pixabay on www.pexels.com.