Judge rules against Vancouver woman whose face was bitten by friends’ dog at a dinner party

A Supreme Court of B.C. judge has found the owners of a dog that bit the face of a one-time friend were not negligent and hence not required to pay damages to the victim.

According to a judgment from Justice Maria Morellato, Vancouver woman Linda Evans was not able to prove that the dog’s owners Erin Berry and Sophie Anderson knew that the animal was potentially dangerous.

The ruling was made under the “doctrine of scienter”, which presumes domesticated animals are harmless and that liability for an attack requires proof that the defendant actually knew that the animal in question had the propensity to cause the type of damage that it did to the plaintiff.

In her ruling, Morellato wrote that Evans went to a dinner party at the home of Berry and Anderson on Nov. 11, 2017 in Vancouver’s West End.

Toward the end of the evening, as the guests were preparing to leave, Evans bent over to pat the dog — Bones — and was suddenly attacked.