$2.5M verdict after a tenant's pit bulls, seen by the owner days earlier, killed a neighbor

A Shelby County jury awarded $2.5 million against the owner and the management company of a small Memphis apartment complex after two pit bulls kept in one of its units attacked and killed a 71-year-old man in a neighboring vacant lot in July 2010. His adult daughter was bitten and knocked down trying to pull the dogs off him.

The complex had two six-unit buildings and no on-site manager. The lease barred pets without written permission. On a routine drive-by eight days before the attack, the owner saw the two dogs tied to a stair railing and was told they belonged to a tenant’s boyfriend who had moved in. He saw them as a “potential” danger but decided to handle it through his usual Thursday eviction docket. He did not call the police or animal control, contact the tenant, or check on the dogs again. The attack came before the eviction was complete.

A first trial in March 2018 ended in a hung jury. At the October 2018 retrial the jury found the owner and manager at fault and awarded $500,000 to the daughter, $1 million for the man’s suffering between injury and death, and $500,000 each for the loss of consortium claims of his wife and daughter.

The trial judge found the award too high and suggested a remittitur to $1.3 million, which the family accepted under protest. In May 2020 the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, including the reduced award, and sent the case back to the trial court.