The American legal system does hand out just punishment to those who deserve it, for sure, but there are also plenty of cases in which it doesn’t. In fact, sometimes the innocent get the hammer brought on them, and for one poor pet owner in Indianapolis, Indiana, he lost a $244K lawsuit after his dogs licked someone’s face. To clarify, unsolicited dog slobber wasn’t the crime, though the dogs were involved. A neighbor was biking through the neighborhood and fell from a pothole by the dog owner’s home. The dogs that were in the yard ran over and started licking the biker’s face. The neighbor then claimed the dogs caused the fall.
Another neighbor who witnessed the whole accident knew for certain the dogs had nothing to do with the biker’s crash. Yet, “With nothing more than a lawyer and blaming my neighbor’s dogs, he argued that the dogs were in the street and caused him to crash,” this other neighbor explained on r/legal. OP and his wife even testified in court as witnesses to defend the dog owner’s innocence. “Despite that, the jury found my neighbor liable and awarded the other neighbor—the bike rider—$244K.”
The Neighbors Can’t Believe the Lying Biker Got Away with the Lawsuit
Needless to say, the neighbor found it unbelievable that the judge let the biker get away, not just with his lies, but with hundreds of thousands of dollars. “I’m stunned. I feel like I’ve lost all faith in the legal system,” OP sighed. Despite there being “zero evidence” of the dogs doing anything to the biker, he and his lawyer still won the case. The incident allegedly occurred four years ago, but the judge recently issued a ruling in the case. Even though the accused man’s homeowner’s insurance might help cover the loss, that amount of money is still wildly outrageous.
“Never underestimate the stupidity of a jury composed solely of the people too dumb to be able to get out of jury duty in the first place,” angrily remarked a Redditor in the post’s comments. Another user questioned whether anyone had security cameras to be used as evidence, but OP denied, saying the neighborhood’s populace is a bit older, so people haven’t installed Ring cameras or anything of the sort.
An argument could be made that the dogs being able to run out freely to the biker after he fell because of a pothole is illegal, under Hammond Ordinance 9151-A. Still, his neighbors witnessed that the dogs were not at fault, as the lawsuit had claimed. This Indiana man’s unfortunate case wouldn’t be the first in which the legal system has handed someone the short end of the stick. Just recently, a Texas mother was found innocent after being sentenced to life in prison for the death of her 10-month-old baby.
