The Minnesota State Patrol cannot be held accountable under the state’s dog bite statute for injuries sustained by an Owatonna car dealer worker after an unprovoked K-9 attack while she was servicing a team vehicle, the state Court of Appeals ruled Monday.
In the 13-page viewpoint, the three-judge panel held that although the state’s dog-bite statute holds owners accountable for hurts sustained in unprovoked dog attacks, the State Patrol has sovereign resistance and cannot be taken legal action against.
The judgment comes from a suit submitted by Cristina Berrier, a staff member of the Owatonna Motor Co., a car dealership that regularly services State Patrol automobiles. On March 15, 2019, a State Patrol officer dropped in with a K-9. Berrier declares the officer stopped working to keep control of the dog, and it assaulted her without justification.
Her lawyer Grant Borgen informed the Star Tribune that they mean to petition the Supreme Court to hear the case. He said the judgment “shrieks out for more evaluation” since the appellate court has actually left individuals with “unpredictability of the law.”
“The choice develops a unique difference where if a dog owned by the federal government bites you, liability will depend upon whether it’s a county or local dog, in which case the federal government’s accountable, and if it’s a state dog, the federal government is not accountable,” Borgen said.
Berrier was seriously hurt by the dog, Diesel, who Borgen said frequently hung out in the service bay location while the unnamed cannon fodder brought his team car in. Borgen said the cannon fodder directed Berrier to put Diesel back in the team car, and she followed his instruction.
“She cuddled [Diesel] farewell like she had actually done on events prior to that and the dog bit her,” Borgen said. “This dog was not trained to attack; it was a trained to spot narcotics.”
The bite on her hand needed surgical treatment to treat an infection, Borgen said.
Berrier taken legal action against in Steele County District Court, mentioning both common neglect on the part of the cannon fodder and likewise mentioning the state’s dog-bite statute, which checks out:
“If a dog, without justification, attacks or hurts anybody who is acting peaceably in any location where the individual might legally be, the owner of the dog is accountable in damages to the individual so assaulted or hurt to the complete quantity of the injury sustained. The term ‘owner’ consists of anybody harboring or keeping a dog however the owner will be mainly accountable.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court formerly chose that an “owner” might indicate “bodies politic,” consisting of towns.
The State Patrol relocated to dismiss the suit, declaring that as a state firm, it has sovereign resistance and cannot be taken legal action against. District Judge Ross Leuning rejected the movement to dismiss, concluding that the Legislature waived sovereign resistance for claims brought under the dog-bite statute.
The State Patrol appealed Leuning’s order, and the Appeals Court agreed the firm. In the order, Judge Theodora Karin Gaïtas composed that the language of the dog-bite statute is not “‘so plain, clear and apparent regarding leave no doubt’ about the Legislature’s intent to waive sovereign resistance.”
“Thus, when a dog owned by a state firm attacks or hurts anybody, the state is immune from outright liability,” Gaïtas composed.
The case now will be returned to Steele County District Court, where it will continue under Berrier’s claims of common neglect. A representative for the Minnesota Attorney General’s workplace, which represented the State Patrol on appeal, referred concerns to the firm, which did not react to a message looking for remark.
