Legal Question in Personal Injury in Oregon

My small dog (a Boston Terrier) who is still young, playfully grabs people's hands with his teeth to play with him or throw a ball for him. He is never being mean and just gets overly excited to play. When my neighbor came into our yard, he playfully nipped her (not breaking skin) to play. Now she says she does not want him anywhere near her fence (on our property) because he "scares her" and bothers her dogs on the other side of the fence. Her large dog who's caused internal damage biting other dogs in the neighborhood jumped the fence and tried biting our dogs but we got it away in time. Now she's saying our dogs are a nuisance to her animals and wants us to keep our dogs away from her fence even though they are on our property. She is also claiming she is now scared of our dogs even though she approaches our dogs on our property with no problem. Now she is yelling at our dogs anytime they bark back at her dogs and claims that we need to keep our dogs away from the fence. Can she sue us and/or what legal repercussions could we have?


Asked on 4/15/14, 10:16 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Daniel Meek Daniel W. Meek

Anyone can sue you for anything. The real question is whether they can successfully sue you. I would say no. From your description, your dog has not caused them any quantifiable harm. As for a lawsuit for nuisance, which could attempt to get an order for you to remove your dog, you would seem to have a better case against them than they have against you.

You might consider setting up a security video camera or webcam to record the activities of your dog in your yard and how the neighbor interacts with your dog.

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Answered on 4/16/14, 5:44 am


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