Facts

On Nov. 21, 2003, plaintiff Victor Vaswani was working at defendant Linda Matlis' home in Woodland Hills. While plaintiff was standing in the front yard of defendant's home, he began conversing with plaintiff's daughter. At the time, the daughter was walking the family's pet dog, a 110-pound, 11-month-old mastiff, on a leash. The dog jumped up on its hind legs and its front paws landed on plaintiff's right arm. Plaintiff pushed the dog away but, supposedly, it jumped up again and knocked plaintiff down. Plaintiff fell on his left hand.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiff sued defendant for premises liability. In particular, plaintiff set forth three main arguments: it was well-known that the dog had a propensity for jumping on people, especially outside and at play; the defendant failed to properly keep the dog inside the house or separated from people; and the dog was intent on attacking plaintiff.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Defendant denied all allegations and offered evidence from an eyewitness who said the dog did not jump on plaintiff a second time, plaintiff never fell, and the dog was restrained by defendant's daughter. Defendant further emphasized that the dog had never hurt a person before this incident and that it was reasonable for defendant to rely on her daughter to control the dog since her daughter had experience controlling strange dogs.

Settlement Discussions

At one point, plaintiff demanded $87,000, and defendant offered $50,000.

Injuries

Plaintiff claimed the rotator cuff in his left shoulder tore when he fell. Although he did not go to a hospital, he was treated by a chiropractor 15 times. He claimed a total of $200,000 in damages, broken down as follows: $6,000 for past medical specials; $30,000 for the cost of possible rotator cuff surgery in the future; and the remainder for pain and suffering. Defendant disagreed with the cause and extent of the injury. Defendant contended plaintiff's rotator cuff injury existed before the incident.

Result

The jury found that defendant was not negligent.

Other Information

In post-trial interviews, many jurors informed that they had lost sympathy for plaintiff after he rejected a $50,000 settlement offer. Further, some jurors did not believe that insurance covered dog attack claims and thus sympathized more with defendant in spite of the fact that she had a policy covering dog attacks.

Deliberation

two hours

Poll

9-3

Length

five days