Alberti, 24, of Boca Raton, will not pursue the acting and modeling career she dreamed about before the attack -- not because she does not have the good looks, but because she thinks she does not, she told a Palm Beach County Circuit Court jury on Wednesday.
Alberti is suing the dog's owners, her family's former neighbors, Victor Rosner, Janet Rosner and Doug Rosner.
The Rosners do not dispute that their dog attacked Alberti, but they do contest having to pay for something like the "loss of enjoyment of life" she claims it caused, said Mark Klingensmith, the Rosners' attorney.
Alberti is not asking that the Rosners pay for medical bills of about $5,000, nor the cost of additional cosmetic surgery, nor for the difference in what she might have earned as a model or actress and what she makes now as a nail technician.
She concedes that it is her own idea that she does not look good enough, rather than something someone told her, that keeps her from following her dreams.
Winner of a beauty pageant in her native Long Island, N.Y., and runner-up in a pageant for teenagers sponsored by a nightclub there, Alberti had contacted a talent agency in Boca Raton before her family`s planned move in January 1987.
She had plans with the agency to screen test for the movie, Revenge of the Nerds, she testified. The part called for "a bathing suit on the beach," Alberti said.
But 20 minutes after the Albertis moved into their new townhouse in Boca Raton, she went outside to get a tool for her father and met Doug Rosner as he was walking the dog. That was when the dog jumped up and bit her in the face, Alberti testified.
What did she remember about the attack? asked her attorney, Geri Sue Straus.
"The inside of his mouth ... pink, dark," Alberti responded. "I remember feeling cold on my face ... blood on my face, my nose, my eye."
What was she feeling?
"I was in pain. I was in shock," she said. "I was afraid. I was afraid to look in the mirror."
(Sun Sentinel - January 25, 1990)
