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Newton Falls dog attacks on woman, cat produce complicated civil litigation
Owner maintains that there is no evidence his animals were involved
By Ed Runyan
NEWTON FALLS
A Jan. 22, 2018, dog attack of an employee walking outside of Venture Plastics on Warren-Ravenna Road in Newton Township resulted in a simple misdemeanor conviction for the owner of three German Shepherds for letting them “run at large.”
But the resulting civil litigation has been anything but simple.
The employee, Rebecca Scofield of Champion, suffered extensive lacerations and nerve damage to her legs and ankle, as well as back injuries, when the dogs attacked, according to February documents filed in one civil case.
“I can no longer work and I am unable to walk without aid or assistance,” she said in a filing in Newton Falls Municipal Court.
That case was filed by the attorney for David Hanson, who lives next door to Venture Plastics, appealing a determination by the Trumbull County Dog Warden that Hanson’s three dogs – named Stovepipe, Thor and Friay – are vicious as a result of the attack.
Such a designation requires their owner to carry special liability insurance and take other precautions.
Judge Philip Vigorito instituted many such requirements as a result of the criminal and civil cases in his court that will remain in effect “until further order of the court.”
The judge also added a new requirement after a pretrial hearing Wednesday in the appeal: that Hanson’s dogs be outfitted with GPS monitoring collars so that they can more easily be located if they get loose again.
That requirement followed allegations that two of the dogs got loose again April 16 and killed a cat outside a home in the Arhaven mobile home park in Braceville Township, also on Warren-Ravenna Road. The attack was captured on a home surveillance camera. No charges were filed in that matter.
In the 18 months since the Scofield attack and the more recent cat attack, Hanson, through Atty. Harry De- Pietro, has maintained that there is no evidence either attack involved Hanson’s dogs.
DePietro, in an interview with The Vindicator, said the descriptions of the dogs given by witnesses differ and do not describe Hanson’s dogs, which he said have distinctive markings.
Scofield, however, in a February filing, said she “recognized the dogs that ran toward me as being owned by David Hanson, whose house and barn are located next to the warehouse building used by Venture” Plastics.
Scofield said she had seen the dogs in the past “on Mr. Hanson’s property and in Mr. Hanson’s custody.”
Hanson’s appeal of the vicious-dog designation is scheduled for trial at 10 a.m. July 24.
Meanwhile, there is also a second pending civil case.
Scofield filed a personal injury lawsuit against Hanson in November 2018 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, seeking damages for her injuries, which include “severe and traumatic shock to her entire physical and emotional systems.” No trial date is set in that case.
The Newton Falls prosecutor, Atty. A. Joseph Fritz, said no charges were filed in the cat attack because the cat was “feral,” or wild.
But Fritz did file a “show cause” motion that required Hanson to “show cause as to why [he] should not be held in contempt of court for failure to properly restrain the dogs” at the time of the cat killing.
That motion was resolved by an agreement between the prosecutor and Hanson in which Hanson agreed to pay the costs incurred by the Trumbull County Sheriff’s office and Trumbull County Dog Pound to look for and recover the two German Shepherds after the cat was killed.
DePietro declined to give the dollar amount Hanson will pay to reimburse those two agencies.
Because Hanson’s appeal involves the county dog pound, two assistant Trumbull County prosecutors are handling the litigation.
A filing in the appeal case says the Scofield attack created tension between the factory and Hanson when a factory official demanded that Hanson get rid of the dogs. Hanson advised the factory official he was going to carry a firearm and would advise others on his property to do so as well in response to the anger of factory employees toward him, the filing says.
A filing by Hanson says his dogs have killed animals such as coyotes, foxes, squirrels, ground hogs, feral cats and geese that “damaged grain crops, farm buildings and outbuildings” or nested on his property.