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A Sydney woman has been awarded more than $100,000 in damages after she was the victim of a “terrifying and violent” dog attack when she intervened to save her 11-year-old shih tzu from being mauled.
Mary Ioannidis launched NSW District Court proceedings against the owner of a greyhound staffordshire bull terrier cross after the incident in Mortdale in Sydney’s south in April 2020. Her dog Lexi’s front left leg was amputated at the shoulder following the attack.
The NSW Companion Animals Act provides that the owner of a dog is liable to pay damages for bodily injury to a person, or damage to personal property, caused by their dog during an attack.Credit: iStock
The court heard the larger dog was unrestrained while Lexi was on a retractable lead on a suburban street.
The greyhound cross ran towards the shih tzu and was “throwing her from side to side” as Ioannidis “tried desperately to pick her up”, District Court Judge John Catsanos said in a decision on Tuesday.
“When she finally was able to get Lexi, the defendant’s dog continued to attack. In the plaintiff’s words: ‘… he kept running back and launching at me, and he just kept attacking, and he just didn’t stop. He didn’t stop, and I was falling over and trying to get on my feet’.”
The judge said photographs taken immediately after the attack “show that Lexi’s front left leg was completely severed at around the elbow joint and … [Ioannidis] had various lacerations and abrasions, including to her neck, chin and hands”.
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“By any measure, this was a violent and terrifying attack,” he said. “Fortunately, there was a vet nearby and following emergency treatment, which included amputation of the leg at the shoulder, Lexi survived.”
Ioannidis, who designs high-end bridal and evening wear, brought a claim for damages under the NSW Companion Animals Act, which provides that the owner of a dog is liable to pay damages for bodily injury to a person, or damage to personal property, caused by their dog during an attack.
The claim did not extend to damages for Lexi’s vet bills.
The owner of the greyhound cross, Melissa Carretero, admitted that her dog attacked Lexi but did not admit it attacked Ioannidis, as opposed to Ioannidis being wounded in the course of the attack upon Lexi.
But the judge said the distinction “did not figure as a real issue in the running of the case” and he was, in any case, “comfortably satisfied that as well as being wounded, the plaintiff was attacked by the defendant’s dog”.
At the heart of the case was a dispute over the nature and quantum of the damages that could be recovered by Ioannidis, the judge said, including whether she could recover damages for psychiatric injury suffered by her as a result of the attack on Lexi.
“Asked about her present emotional state, the plaintiff said she struggles to walk outside with dogs, though she has a new puppy as Lexi recently passed away,” the judge said.
He found the attack caused Ioannidis “to suffer psychiatric injury in the form of PTSD”. Her physical injuries had recovered, apart from “very minor scarring”.
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The judge concluded the Companion Animals Act did not extend to Ioannidis “recovering damages for the psychological trauma of witnessing the attack on Lexi”. It was “limited to injury ... caused by the defendant’s dog wounding or attacking her, not Lexi”.
He noted that “the difficulty to be navigated when assessing damages ... lies in how one deals with the contribution made to the plaintiff’s psychological state by the trauma suffered as a result of the injury to Lexi”.
Ultimately, this did not make a difference to the assessment of damages in this case because the judge said the evidence “satisfies me that the attack upon the plaintiff and the attack upon Lexi are inextricably linked”.
He did not apply any discount when assessing the damages because the defendant did not “provide evidence which would enable a reasoned evaluation of the psychological effects of the trauma associated with the attack on Lexi, independently of the attack on the plaintiff”.
The judge awarded a total of $101,788.63 in damages and ordered the owner of the larger dog to pay Ioannidis’ legal costs.
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