Dogs

Animal control issue. Period. Everything else drama.

That's my thinking as well but sustained continuous violations of our covenants that the board knows about and refuses to address could constitute negligence, no? We've got liability insurance covering the HOA common property, but from what I've read negligence could render that void. If these dogs bite a child there's no doubt the HOA would be named party to a lawsuit. That would cost us legal fees to defend whether or not the plaintiff prevails.

Verify that County Code applies to private property (I know that Fairfax County in VA code on the use of leashes applies to private property).


The police and animal control should have been contacted immediately.


Understood.
Has anyone talked to the individuals OR are they simply wanting someone else to do this for them (ie the Association)?


Unless someone was a witness to the event there is nothing that can be done through the County about the dog bite.


If the leash law is truly applicable to private property and being broken, and you see it happening, contact animal control.

Better, have everyone who is concerned contact animal control when it occurs (squeaky wheel gets the grease).

Best, take video of this as well to show the Officer when they arrive to investigate.

How about encouraging the injured party to make the report now.

I will say that we recently had an incident similar to this one.
The Victim didn't want to contact Animal Control (as she didn't want to be involved) but insisted that the Association do something.

The Board wrote a letter to the owner informing them that we had been made aware of the incident and that they needed to have the dogs on a leash at all times. We quoted county code. We also informed them that if another individual was attacked the Board would seek legal action (threat but it worked) in addition to any action taken by the County.

Geno - the agency with the authority to do something is the county animal control. At least you can attempt to document the off leash dogs by calling them, and reporting what you know. Maybe they can't do anything this time if the person who was bitten will not report it. But, there is a record of your report. If the dogs do something similar again, this is background information.

John,

Although I agree with you, in my Association it became the Board's issue due to our published policy on pets and conduct upon the common area. I am in the process of drafting a new policy for the Board to adopt that removes it from the Boards issue unless the victim also makes a complaint with the county (justification that we volunteers are not trained to determine if a dog is dangerous or not). The policy also specifies (if adopted) that the Board may impose a monetary penalty for the rule infraction.

GenoS Fla : Worth tracking down the difference under Florida law between the dog owner/handler's liability - which may be 'strict' without a scienter/free bite - and the occupier's liability to enforce rules especially known common element infractions that risked injury & failed to adequately deter.

This is a troubling issue in my jurisdicition after a dog attack considerably less severe than the killing of Diane Whipple years ago.

If your corporation is a deemed occupier of the common element, then it may find itself sharing liability with someone without insurance. ie the owners forced to suck up an insurance deductible or worse. ie the dangerous knowledge bites all owners in the pants.

I love dogs & walk mine alone off leash in the common ownership forests here. But that elderly dog could trigger such a chain of events that I had better not let anything happen, including being hit by a car & triggering further collateral loss. . .

A letter with almost that exact wording was sent to the dog's owners 2 years ago. Nothing further was done. If there was nothing in our covenants about leashed pets then I would agree with you 100% that it's not an HOA issue. But there are specific restrictions in the CCRs against it so I only agree with you 90% The BoD having specific knowledge about the repeated violations and not taking any action under the covenants might be considered negligence in the event of a future incident, no? Perhaps the best remedy is simply to call animal control and report the incident in which case the BoD could truthfully claim it acted prudently to address the situation.

If my grandkid got bit his parents would sue the dog's owners and the HOA and I'd be in their corner. The argument would be, "the covenants prohibit off-leash dogs, you knew this particular dog was dangerous, running off-leash almost daily, had already bit another resident and yet you did nothing about it." I think that's a pretty persuasive argument. I don't see how "that's got nothing to do with the HOA so it's not our problem" is a credible defense. Not when the covenants specifically address precisely the exact behavior that was the cause of the problem in the first place. And if it is negligence then our insurance probably isn't going to cover any claims.

I don't want to ever see circumstances transpire that would lead to testing those arguments in court. So while reporting incidents to the county's Animal Control division is definitely an appropriate course of action I see the "no off-leash pets" covenant restriction as requiring something more. Otherwise the entire paragraph in the covenants that addresses this nuisance is worthless. Maybe it is. I hope we don't find out the hard way.

Thanks for the replies. I think we've got a handle on this now. I should have done a more general search on the internet before asking here; this issue has been beaten to death over the years both here and elsewhere. It didn't take long to learn that dog bite injuries are big business for some lawyers. I also found a page [link] that references two 1996 cases in Florida, i.e. Barrwood Homeowners Association, Inc. v. Maser, 675 So.2d 983 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), and Sanzare v. Varesi, 681 So.2d 785 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996).

"... homeowners associations were put on notice that they too can be found liable, at least in the civil context, for dog bites occurring on common areas. Each of these cases held that Florida homeowners associations may be liable when a bad dog harms someone within the community if the association was previously aware of the dog’s vicious propensities."

With that in mind we are ready to move ahead and will run it by the HOA's attorneys to see what they think. Thanks again for all the input.

Geno

Keep in mind the above. Your OP said the person bitten took no action so if they did not, is it not all hearsay? I would hate for my HOA to get involved based on hearsay.

Attached (I hope) is the letter sent 2 years ago to the same dog owners. The same letter will probably be sent again with a current date and the new president's signature. I redacted all identifying information. Sorry for the bad scan quality. Instead of "we request" I'm going to push for "we insist" or "we demand". The board will be speaking next week with the attorneys.