On July 24, 2010, our client Jeannette Cunningham was walking on a public street in Burien when a wandering pit bull approached her and viciously attacked her without any provocation.
Investigation determined that the dog had escaped the fenced yard it was confined to through a gate that had been left open while the pit bull's owners, Juan Garcia and Aleicia Garcia (aka Gabriele Garcia), were not at their home.
The dog lunged directly at our client’s face and throat area, resulting in multiple lacerations on her nose and face, and also tore off a sizable portion of her lower lip.
Cunningham was taken immediately to the trauma center at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle to be admitted for emergency surgery.
Attorney Chris Davis was hired to represent Jeannette Cunningham and filed a lawsuit against the owners of the dog in King County Superior Court on her behalf.
Attorneys representing the insurance company for the Garcias’ homeowner’s liability insurance policy tried to argue that our client was somehow at fault for the injuries she suffered in the pit bull attack.
However, they ultimately acknowledged their own liability for our client’s injuries and we were able to successfully negotiate a $500,000 settlement ahead of a scheduled jury trial.
The final settlement covered the extensive medical bills and surgical procedures that our client had endured in the years following the attack, as well as a loss of consortium claim that was filed by her husband.
Incredibly, the town of Burien handed the vicious Pit Bull back to its owners, Juan Garcia and Aleicia Garcia, on the condition that they remove it from the city limits.
This is known as NIMBY = not in my backyard. It's when cities refuse to do the right thing and euthanize a vicious dog and instead dump it into someone else's town, making it THEIR problem. Typically, no one in this new town is even told that this vicious dog is now living in their community. This is a horrible practice because it puts people in danger as typically no one knows of this dog's history and the people now caring for it are under no obligation to tell authorities nor are they required to abide by any dangerous dog restrictions such as muzzling the dog or maintaining liability insurance.
(injurytriallawyer - September 13, 2015)
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