This page introduces Texas dog bite expert witness Richard Polsky, Ph.D. to attorneys and lawyers in Texas.
Attorney seeking the services of an expert witness in dog behavior are encouraged to contact Dr. Polsky to discuss the possibility of retaining his services to opine about commonly occurring issues in Texas dog bite litigation: Did the owner know the dog was dangerous? Was the owner negligent in the management of the dog? Was the dog bite incident foreseeable? Did the victim provoke the dog to bite?
Below, I report on noteworthy news on dog bite incidences from the Lone Star State. Most of these instances touch on the issues mentioned above. Note that Texas, unlike other nearby states such as Arizona, Texas does not impose statutory strict liability on the owner for dog bites. Instead, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant should have known about the dog’s dangerous tendencies prior to the incident in question.
Hence, to prove liability against an owner in Texas, in the majority of the cases, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant acted negligently in terms of how the dog was contained, managed or handled. The degree of negligence by an owner can usually be determined by considering the totality of the circumstances present at the time of the incident. [1]An overview of the laws in Texas as they pertain to animals including dogs and dog bites can be found on the website maintained by the Michigan State University Law school.
Given the above, below are stories and appellate decisions that may prove informative to Texas dog bite attorneys:
- Pit bull mauls one year old child to death in Magnolia, Texas. A March 2011 attack by a pit bull dog killed a one-year-old boy in Magnolia Texas, a small town about 50 miles north of Houston. Read more
- Labrador retriever dog bite leads to lawsuit in Galveston, Texas. Joggers are often attacked by dogs, possibly because of the movement which triggers predatory tendencies in some dogs, and this may have happened in a dog bite incident in Galveston, Texas in September 2011. The victim, Jack Kaufman, was jogging, and according to his complaint the dog bit him, tearing his skin and causing severe injuries to his legs. The lawsuit also alleges that this particular Labrador retriever had exhibited prior dangerous propensities which were “abnormal to its class”, and that the dog had attacked other people prior to September 2011. Plaintiff also listed a number of areas of negligence by the defendant in their lawsuit, such as failure to properly control the dog.
- Texas leads nation in fatal dog attacks. There have been approximately 34 dog bite fatalities between January 2005 and February 2013 in Texas, making Texas the leader in incidences of fatal dog attacks in the USA. Children under the age of 11 represented 68% of fatal dog bite cases. Read more
- DNA analysis fails to identify dogs involved in fatal dog attack in Dallas Texas. DNA analysis is the standard in canine forensics when the identification of dogs involved in the fatal dog attack remains uncertain. DNA analysis is nearly 100% accurate provided that the collection of forensic evidence is not contaminated accurate …Read more
- Dog bite to the face by a German Shepherd in a Texas Petco store. Increased risks of dog bite attack exists for customers of Petco stores given the aggressive temperament of some dogs and the management practices of Petco. Read more
- Unsupervised two-year-old toddler was killed in Hunt County, Texas
Divine intervention when Bibles used to stop pit bull attack in Texas? - Bull mastiff inflicts a fatal dog bite 2-year-old toddler in Killeen, Texas in March 2014
- Mom bites off ear of pit bull to save 2 y.o. daughter
- Animal behavior perspective on fatal dog bite to 83-year-old woman in Texas
- Predatory attack by pit bull kills two year old infant
- Pack of stray dogs kill 52-year-old lady in Dallas, Texas
- Labrador retriever led dog pack kills process server in Austin
- Study finds serious dog bite problem caused by stray dogs in southern Dallas, Texas
- Toddler killed in fatal dog attack in Hunt County, TX.
- Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
Footnotes
| ↑1 | An overview of the laws in Texas as they pertain to animals including dogs and dog bites can be found on the website maintained by the Michigan State University Law school. |