A dog attacked a woman at an L.A. city animal shelter. She won a $5.4-million verdict
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- A jury awarded a woman $5.4 million after a Belgian Malinois named Maximus bit her at the East Valley Animal Shelter.
- Her lawyers argued that Maximus, who had bitten a young girl and a shelter employee, should have been euthanized.
- It was the third multimillion-dollar payout in recent years involving allegations that the city animal shelters failed to notify potential adopters that a dog had bitten and seriously injured someone.
A woman who was mauled by a dog at a Los Angeles city animal shelter has been awarded $5.4 million by a jury.
Genice Horta, 51, said that neither the shelter nor any rescue groups told her the dog, a Belgian Malinois named Maximus, had bitten a teenager and a shelter employee, sending both to the hospital.
After six surgeries to repair the bones and nerves in her right arm, Horta was left with permanent damage, according to a brief by her attorneys in the lawsuit she filed in 2022.
After a 10-day trial, the L.A. County Superior Court jury decided last month that the city was 62.5% liable, the rescue group HIT Living Foundation was 25% liable and Horta was 12.5% liable for medical expenses and pain and suffering.
It was the third multimillion-dollar payout in recent years involving allegations that the city animal shelters failed to notify potential adopters that a dog had bitten and seriously injured someone, as required by state law.
Horta’s case “revealed a series of serious and preventable mistakes made with respect to warning about Maximus’ bite history and adopting out and failing to control a dangerous dog,” one of her attorneys, Ivan Puchalt, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the L.A. city attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Agnes Sibal-von Debschitz, communications director for LA Animal Services, said in a statement that according to department policy, “staff must provide a bite and behavioral disclosure to any person receiving an animal with a prior bite history.”
The policy was formally enacted last November in response to a $3.25-million settlement reached by the city with Kristin Wright, who was severely injured by a pit bull she adopted from the South L.A. shelter. Wright said the shelter didn’t inform her that the dog had bitten his previous owner’s elderly mother in the face.
In a similar case, Argelia Alvarado received a $7.5-million settlement from the city in June 2024 after her son adopted a pit bull from a city animal shelter who attacked her so savagely that she lost an arm. The shelter failed to disclose to Alvarado’s son that the dog had bitten a jogger in both arms.
Only later did Kristin Wright discover that Valerio was surrendered to the shelter after biting his previous owner’s elderly mother in the face.
Heather Crowe, founder of HIT Living Foundation, said in an email Saturday that her group helped an Arizona rescue group adopt Maximus by formally pulling him from the shelter and taking ownership of him. The Arizona group, Pampering Pet Rescue, hired Horta to drive Maximus from the East Valley Animal Shelter to Arizona, Crowe said.
According to court documents, a person from the Arizona group acted as HIT’s proxy to hire Horta.
Horta had no prior experience with shelter dogs, according to the city’s attorneys.
On Sept. 23, 2020, after a shelter employee told Horta that Maximus had “kennel anxiety,” she offered the dog a treat containing trazodone, a common anxiety medication for dogs, according to an amended complaint by Horta’s attorneys.
Maximus took the treat, then lunged and latched onto Horta’s right hand and arm. A fuzzy video of the attack was played in court during the trial.
Horta alleged that the shelter employee who brought Maximus to her car negligently failed to control him and never told her the dog could be dangerous. During the attack, the employee was gripping a metal pole with a cable looped around Maximus’ neck.
The employee, Jose Humildad, testified that he told Horta not to approach Maximus with the treat.
A lawsuit alleged that L.A. city shelter staff failed to provide the woman’s son with written notice of the dog’s bite history before he adopted the canine.
Maximus’ previous owners surrendered him to the shelter after he bit their 15-year-old daughter on the foot, leaving deep puncture wounds and requiring hospital treatment, according to the brief by Horta’s attorneys, and several weeks later, Maximus bit a shelter employee who went to the emergency room for a severe bite to the abdomen.
Horta said she never was told of the attacks, which made Maximus unsuitable for public adoption, and he was placed on the city’s New Hope list, which is accessible to registered nonprofit rescues.
Shelter employees had documented Maximus “viciously biting and snapping at people walking past his enclosure,” according to the brief by Horta’s attorneys. One employee wrote “USE EXTREME CAUTION!!!”
Horta’s attorneys argued that Maximus was so dangerous that he should have been euthanized.
The city pushed back on that interpretation.
L.A. animal shelters are not “death row in Mississippi at midnight,” Deputy City Atty. Joshua Quinones said in his closing argument. “This is a rescue operation.”
Quinones also argued that Maximus already had been sold to HIT Living Foundation when he bit Horta.
Trying to find Maximus a home, animal rescuers posted repeatedly on Instagram days before the 1-year-old dog bit Horta, describing him as a “handsome misunderstood pup” and a “young troublemaker” in danger of being euthanized.
The post said Maximus had a bite history but provided no details.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
The latest effort is coming from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. They just announced a $3 million program in conjunction with some nonprofits groups to test and clean the soil at homes still standing in the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Dr. Vanessa J. Díaz, professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.
