A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury has awarded $5.4 million to a woman who was mauled by a dog at a city animal shelter after neither the shelter nor the rescue group she worked for disclosed the animal's violent history. The verdict adds to a growing pattern of multi-million-dollar payouts tied to Los Angeles animal shelters failing to warn the public about dangerous dogs.
What Happened at the East Valley Animal Shelter
On September 23, 2020, Genice Horta, then working for a rescue group called HIT Living Foundation, arrived at the East Valley Animal Shelter in Los Angeles to transport a dog to Arizona. The dog, a one-year-old Belgian Malinois named Maximus, had been placed on the city's New Hope list, which is accessible to registered nonprofit rescues.
A shelter employee told Horta that Maximus had "kennel anxiety." She offered the dog a treat containing trazodone, a common anxiety medication for dogs. Maximus took the treat, then lunged and latched onto Horta's right hand and arm.
Horta had no prior experience working with shelter dogs, according to the city's attorneys. She alleged that the shelter employee who brought Maximus to her car failed to control the dog and never told her Maximus could be dangerous.
A Dog Bite History the Los Angeles Shelter Never Disclosed
What Horta did not know, and what she says no one told her, was that Maximus had already sent two people to the hospital.
According to a brief filed by Horta's attorneys, Maximus' previous owners surrendered him to the shelter after he bit their 15-year-old daughter on the foot, leaving deep puncture wounds that required hospital treatment. Several weeks later, Maximus bit a shelter employee severely enough in the abdomen to send that employee to the emergency room.
Shelter staff had documented Maximus "viciously biting and snapping at people walking past his enclosure." One employee's notes included the warning: "USE EXTREME CAUTION!!!"
Despite all of this, neither the shelter nor HIT Living Foundation disclosed the bite history to Horta before she was sent to handle the dog.
The Los Angeles Dog Bite Verdict and Liability Split
After a 10-day trial, the jury decided that the City of Los Angeles was 62.5% liable, HIT Living Foundation was 25% liable, and Horta herself was 12.5% liable for medical expenses and pain and suffering.
Horta filed her lawsuit in 2022. According to the brief filed by her attorneys, she underwent six surgeries to repair the bones and nerves in her right arm and was left with permanent damage.
Attorney Ivan Puchalt, one of Horta's lawyers, said in a statement that the case "revealed a series of serious and preventable mistakes." Those mistakes, Puchalt said, involved failures in warning about Maximus' bite history and in controlling a dangerous dog before placing him with a handler.
Deputy City Attorney Joshua Quinones argued in his closing that Maximus had already been sold to HIT Living Foundation when the attack occurred. He also pushed back on claims that the dog should have been euthanized. "L.A. animal shelters are not 'death row in Mississippi at midnight,'" Quinones said. "This is a rescue operation."
A spokesperson for the L.A. City Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for comment. HIT Living Foundation also did not respond.
Third Multi-Million Payout Over Undisclosed Dog Bite Histories
This Los Angeles dog bite verdict is the third multi-million-dollar payout in recent years involving allegations that city animal shelters failed to tell potential adopters or handlers that a dog had bitten and seriously injured someone, as required by California state law.
In November, the city reached a $3.25 million settlement with Kristin Wright, who was severely injured by a pit bull she adopted from the South LA shelter. Wright said the shelter never told her the dog had bitten his previous owner's elderly mother in the face.
In response to the Wright case, LA Animal Services formally enacted a bite and behavioral disclosure policy last November. Agnes Sibal-von Debschitz, communications director for LA Animal Services, said that under the policy, "staff must provide a bite and behavioral disclosure to any person receiving an animal with a prior bite history."
Before that, in 2023, a jury awarded $6.8 million to shelter volunteer Kelly Kaneko, who was mauled by a German shepherd mix at an LA city shelter after intake records contained no information about the dog's prior aggressive behavior.
What This Verdict Signals for Animal Shelter Liability
Horta's attorneys argued that Maximus was so dangerous he should have been euthanized. The city disputed that characterization, but the jury's verdict sends a clear message: shelters and rescue organizations can face significant financial consequences when they fail to disclose a dog's bite history.
For plaintiff attorneys handling dog bite cases in California, this verdict reinforces that institutional defendants, including municipal shelters and rescue nonprofits, can be held jointly liable when they fail to follow state-mandated disclosure requirements.
Verdicts like this one deserve to be seen. Major Verdict is the only platform where plaintiff attorneys can publicly display their trial results and settlements for free. Create your profile today and let your record speak for itself. If you or someone you love has been seriously injured, find a plaintiff lawyer on Major Verdict who has the trial record to back it up.
