Dog owner settles with “trike” rider hurt in collision with black Lab

$265,000 Settlement

A woman who fell from a three-wheel motorcycle after hitting a black Labrador retriever running loose on the road settled her personal injury lawsuit against the dog owners.

On January 8, 2003, Karen Worley was riding a three-wheel motorcycle – also known as a motorcycle “trike”- in Camden County at the Lake of the Ozarks. She was traveling west on Horseshoe Bend Parkway and as she neared the entrance to the Blackhawk Estates subdivision, the dog ran out into the road. Worley swerved but was unable to avoid hitting the dog. She was thrown from the motorcycle and hit the pavement. The dog was killed.

The dog was owned by Donald and Joan Gerard of St. Louis County. The couple had a vacation home located in the Lake of the Ozarks subdivision. When they stayed at the vacation home, they allowed their dog to go outside unrestrained and unsupervised. The dog had a history of wandering away from the couple’s property and into other subdivisions. On the day of the accident, the Gerards were in Mexico. They had left their dog in the care of two house sitters who were staying at the vacation home.

As a result of the collision, Worley suffered a torn rotator cuff and tore the anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) in both knees.  Worley needed surgery to repair the rotator cuff and eventually total knee replacements in both knees. Her medical bills were approximately $120,000.00.

Worley sued the dog owners and house sitters in St. Louis County Circuit Court alleging they were negligent when they allowed a dog with a known history of leaving the owners’ property to roam freely and unsupervised.

The owners defended on the grounds that there was no leash law in Camden County and the dog was not vicious. In their motion for summary judgment, the owners cited Brouk v. Brueggeate, 849 S.W.2d 699 (Mo.App.E.D. 1993), which held that if there is no leash law, a dog owner is liable for an injury caused by a dog only if the owner has actual or constructive knowledge of the dog’s vicious propensities. The appellate court in Brouk wrote, “Evidence of a dog’s barking, running loose, jumping and lunging do not establish viciousness, but rather are activities in which all dogs engage.”

St. Louis lawyers Jamie Boock and Dawn Mefford represented the plaintiff.

“Initially, it seemed like the dog owners had a slam-dunk summary judgment argument,” Boock said. “But after closer review, it became clear they were trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, using a strict liability ruling to defend against an ordinary negligence case.”

The plaintiff distinguished Brouk, arguing that the holding was limited to strict liability dog bite or dog attack claims. Her suit didn’t include a strict liability claim and did not involve a dog bite or dog attack. Rather, her claim was for ordinary negligence. The lack of leash laws or vicious propensities was irrelevant. Instead, the plaintiff asserted, what mattered was that the dog had a known tendency to leave the owners’ property and therefore it was foreseeable the dog would run out into the road and cause an accident. 

In a statement of agreed-upon facts submitted by the plaintiff, the pet owners admitted that their St. Louis County home had a fenced-in backyard and that the dog was never allowed to roam unsupervised because they feared he might wander out into a nearby heavily-trafficked road and either get hit or cause an accident. In addition, the pet owners admitted that when they let the dog roam at the Lake of the Ozarks vacation home, he wandered outside the subdivision.

Mefford said, “The admissions of the dog owners were critical if our effort to frame the issue in this case as one of negligence rather than strict liability was going to succeed.”

The plaintiff did succeed. The trial court denied the dog owners’ motion for summary judgment. The case was submitted for mediation. Noting a history of knee problems in Worley’s family and the length of time between the collision and complaints of injury to the right knee, the defendants argued that the injury to the right knee was not caused by the accident. The case settled for $265,000.00 on January 8, 2007.
 

Karen Worley
v.
Donald and Joan Gerard, Darrell C. Ruediger, and Terry Ann Wright
Circuit Court of the County of St. Louis
State of Missouri
Cause No. 05CC-3098