2021-L-009072 (Cook County, Illinois)
A young woman standing in the checkout line bent down to pet the dog of another couple in line and the dog turned to bite the woman in the face. The woman brought a 6-count complaint against the dog owners and the pet store, claiming both physical and emotional injuries as a result of the incident.
Plaintiff made allegations of negligence as well as violations of the Illinois Animal Control Act against both the owners of the dog and the pet supply store. The allegations against the pet supply store claim that the store was negligent in failing to monitor the dog, that it knew the dog was vicious and failed to restrain it, that the store failed to properly transfer the dog to its owners, and that the store failed to warn customers of the dog’s “vicious propensities.”
Attorneys Shipra Mehta and Chloe Polo took up defense of the pet store and believed the pet store had no liability whatsoever under either a negligence theory or under the Illinois Animal Control Act. Shipra and Chloe positioned the case for a motion to dismiss, but faced two hurdles: the store manager at the time of the incident had left the company and was unreachable, and secondly the case was given to a notoriously plaintiff-friendly judge in the Law Division of Cook County, already a heavily plaintiff-favored venue.
Nevertheless, Shipra and Chloe persisted in filing the motion, attempting to spare their client the burden of discovery, litigation, and defense costs. They claimed that the Animal Control Act does not apply to the pet store whatsoever, and that plaintiffs cannot establish that the pet store owed a duty to the plaintiff even accepting all the allegations of the complaint as true. The judge agreed with Shipra and Chloe and granted the motion dismissing the pet store from the case.
