Under Under section 3952 of Title 7 of the Maine Revised Statutes, anyone who owns or keeps a dangerous dog can be fined between $250 and $1,000. If a dangerous dog hurts you, you may be able to bring a lawsuit for negligence and reimbursement for injuries under section 3961. In Maine, when a dog injures someone who is partly at fault for the injury, the damages will not be reduced unless the court determines the plaintiff’s fault for the attack exceeds the fault of the dog owner.
Maine is a strict liability state for dog bite and dog attack cases. When an injury happens on a dog owner’s property, a plaintiff must show that the owner was negligent. When the injury does not occur on the owner’s property, a plaintiff does not need to show negligence.
In a 2013 case, Fields v. Hayden, a woman who had been attacked by a dog appealed from a summary judgment in favor of the landlords of the dog’s owners. The woman alleged that the attacks occurred because the landlords were negligent. The case arose when the defendant landlords leased a single family home to a couple, the Perrys. The lease provided that the Perrys were allowed to have pets in the home, but that they would be responsible for property or other damage caused by the pets. Their dog allegedly attacked the plaintiff on three occasions.
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