CONNECTICUT -- -The woman who owned the pit bulls involved in last week’s attack on her toddler niece also is being sued by a postal carrier for injuries sustained in a separate canine incident, court records show.
Sources familiar with the cases confirmed that the woman being sued is the same woman who owned the three pit bulls who attacked Neveah Angel Bryant and that Police Department officers investigating last week’s death are aware of the civil case. The source said, however, that the dog who bit the postal worker was not one of the three responsible for the toddler attack.
Ronald Diotalevi filed a civil complaint against Erica Hobdy in 2009 after a pit bull allegedly owned by Hobdy bit and harmed Diotalevi’s arm and leg while on the job, according to the documents.
Diotalevi was delivering mail to an Ansonia address where Hobdy previously lived.
The dog “came from the premises … and violently attacked and viciously bit the Plaintiff,” the suit says. It goes on to say Diotalevi received “punctures, lacerations, abrasions and dog bites” on his right forearm and left thigh, as well as “pain, soreness, discomfort and tenderness” in those areas.
The suit adds that because of the injuries, Diotalevi may not be able to perform his work “from time to time in the future.”
The suit also names Marilyn Primrose as a defendant because she leased the apartment to Hobdy and because there was “inadequate fencing” at the home to contain the dog. Diotalevi in the suit asks for at least $15,000 in damages.
Diotalevi’s New Haven attorney, Alphonse Balzano Jr., said Wednesday that “my heart goes out to the family” affected by last week’s attack, and that Hobdy hasn’t attended court meetings. However, another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 12.
Hobdy didn’t return a message for comment Wednesday. She said earlier this week that the three dogs recently living with her weren’t ever vicious before and that they had been in another room away from her 20-month-old niece Friday night. She says she doesn’t know how they escaped and got to Neveah.
Police say that after the West Haven attack, two of the dogs were standing near the bloodied girl, who was unconscious when emergency personnel arrived. The toddler died soon after at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and the pit bulls were euthanized because of the severity of the case and their aggression, police said.
The state medical examiner’s office ruled the death was accidental and due to multiple injuries.
(Middletown Press - October 06, 2011)
