A former student of a high school in another state and her parents filed a lawsuit against the school, alleging negligence. As in New Jersey, there are laws in place to hold dog owners or other negligent parties responsible for animal bites. In this case, the defendants are the priest, campus minister, the high school, and several other parties who were involved in scheduling volunteers to visit senior citizens as part of a Meals on Wheels project.
Reportedly, the plaintiff suffered severe injuries when she delivered a meal to the home of an 83-year-old woman in 2017 when the plaintiff was 17 years old. This was after the student was offered the opportunity to volunteer during the summer months. The defendants supervised the volunteers in this community project, but the plaintiffs claim that the defendants failed to investigate the safety of the homes where meals were to be delivered.
The complaint claims evidence of several previous citations for failure to control a dog issued to the resident of the home at which the plaintiff was attacked. The student suffered multiple vicious bites on her face. She required immediate and medical and surgical care, and further treatment of the injuries will be ongoing.
The complaint lists five other instances in which the school failed to investigate potentially dangerous properties at which volunteers had to deliver meals. In this case, the plaintiffs seek judgments against each defendant to the sum of an amount exceeding the jurisdictional amount of $50,000. Civil claims concerning animal bites are a complicated field of the law. For that reason, victims of dog attacks in New Jersey typically seek the support and guidance of an experienced personal injury attorney.