Dog Bites

Vicious Dogs Attack Meter Reader $1M - Pit Bulls Maul Woman

On June 23, 2003, a 52-year-old meter reader was walking her route when she came upon a house rented by David Tueche in Port St. John. What started as an ordinary day for her would soon turn into a nightmare.

As the client approached the house, four dogs - all pit bulls - leaped over a four-foot high fence and attacked her. She tried using pepper spray to force the dogs to back off, but it had no effect. The dogs immediately bit her and dragged her around the yard, their sharp teeth and clenched jaws showing no signs of letting up. Before the attack was over, our client had lost her scalp and one of her ears. She ran to a neighbor's house for help, with the neighbor calling 911.

The client sustained a number of injuries, with severe scarring and disfigurement to the face. Her scalp, though located at the scene by the defendant, could not be reattached. Instead, doctors harvested skin from her chest and neck area to create grafts, which were surgically attached to her head. Following that procedure, doctors told her she would need to undergo multiple tissue expander procedures to cover her now exposed scalp with hair growth. Additional procedures to reconstruct her ear will require even more skin grafts and numerous surgical procedures in the future.

When she contacted Nance Cacciatore, our investigators interviewed several of Tueche's neighbors and learned that a number of previous complaints had been made to the property owner, Penn Properties, and its trustee Roberta Siffar about the dogs, with one neighbor even resorting to a claw hammer to defend himself against these vicious hounds. Our firm filed suit, based in part on the fact that defendant Penn Properties either knew or should have known that the dogs were dangerous.

Based on our investigation and subsequent negotiations with the defendant's insurance carrier, Jim Nance and Jamie Nance settled the case for the policy limit of $1 million, giving our client the financial security to cover future medical expenses and lost wages without worrying about how she will make ends meet.