Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Pet policy

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

I was reminded in a recent conversation with our insurance agent on an
unrelated matter that liability is determined after the fact by judges and
juries, not before the fact.

Which is to say, local, state and national laws specify rules about
liability, but those rules are necessarily vague; in any specific instance,
you can make your best guess ahead of time as to what you'll be found
liable for, but in the end, you'll be held liable if a judge or jury says
you are.

Or put more simply: a visitor can absolutely sue your HOA for a dog
attack.  Will such a suit be found in your favor?  You hope so.  You'd have
to ask a lawyer how to maximize the chance that it will (and maybe being
silent on a dog policy would increase that chance compared to having a
free-dog policy, I dunno) but your policies can't prevent you from being
sued!

In reality, you don't want to test this by getting sued, because getting
sued is expensive, even if you win!

Then there is the separate issue about whether a particular issue will be
covered by your liability insurance.  If you get sued, you may win or
lose.  (this is a matter of law and court)  If you lose, your policy may or
may not cover you.  (This is a matter of law and fine print on your
insurance policy.)

Worst case scenario is being legally liable for something your insurance
doesn't cover.  In the dog example, you'd want to check with your insurance
carrier to make sure that you are covered against this.




On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:00 PM, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> 
wrote:

>
> So:  If your community allows a member's dog to run free, and said
> free-running dog rips the throat out of one of your visitors, the community
> shares in the liability.  But ...
>
> What if your community is totally silent on dogs?  That is, you neither
> allow nor prohibit any specific actions re dogs, cats, birds, snakes,
> whatever.  It has never even occurred to you discuss the matter.  Are you
> then still liable?
>
> RPD
>
> On Apr 24, 2012, at 10:00 AM, Sharon Villines wrote:
>
> > In DC we discovered that if we allowed a homeowner to have their dog
> "not within their immediate" control and the dog caused harm, the whole
> community was liable because we were in violation of the DC laws.
>
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