Florida

Plaintiff Lisa Arellano suffered a dog bite and injury to her big toe after being attacked by a guard dog. The Defendant, Broward K–9/Miami K–9 Services, Inc. (“K–9”), owned two guard dogs. The guard dogs escaped K-9 after the business was burglarized, and the chain link fence was cut. The dogs entered Arellano’s neighborhood and she believed that the dogs belonged to one of her neighbors. Arellano fed and sheltered the dogs for about five days, and took steps to find the dogs' owner. However, Arellano also had pet dogs of her own. Eventually, one of the guard dogs attacked one of Arellano's dogs. When Arellano intervened in the attack between the two dogs, she was injured. Eventually, Animal Control determined that K–9 owned the guard dogs. Arellano then brought a statuory damages claim for strict liability against K-9 under Florida’s dog bite statute. The Circuit Court, Miami–Dade County, entered summary judgment in favor of K-9 and determined as a matter of law, that Arellano's actions constituted a superseding, intervening cause, thereby precluding her statutory dog bite claim against the Defendant, K-9.  Plaintiff, Arellano appealed.  The District Court of Appeals, held that triable issues of fact existed as to whether, and to what extent, K-9's liability under the statute should be reduced because of allegedly negligent actions by Arellano. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the circuit court decision and reasoned that Florida's dog bite statute imposes strict liability on dog owners, subject only to a plaintiff's comparative negligence, which in this case must be determined by the trier-of-fact. K-9's liability under the statute should only be reduced because of the allegedly negligent actions of Arellano. The court also reversed the resulting cost judgment in K–9's favor. The case was remanded to the trial court.

Defendant owned four dogs prior to the enactment of an ordinance prohibiting municipality residents from owning more than two dogs in one household.  The municipality brought suit against Defendant for failing to comply with the ordinance.  The trial court denied the municipalities prayer for permanent injunctive relief, but the Court of Appeals overruled the decision holding the ordinance could constitutionally be enforced under the police power to abate nuisance.

In this Florida case, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for felony cruelty to animals after the defendant shot an opossum "countless" times with a BB gun after the animal had left defendant's home. As a result, the animal had to be euthanized. The court wrote separately to observe that the felony cruelty section (828.12) as written creates a potential tension between conduct criminalized by the statute and the lawful pursuit of hunting. The commission of an act that causes a "cruel death" in Section 828.12 applies to even the unintended consequence of a lawful act like hunting.

In this Florida case, the defendant appealed from an adverse judgment involving the sale of a bird dog. The complaint alleged that the defendant was a professional bird dog trainer and field trial handler and as such knew the qualifications necessary for a dog to have in order to compete successfully on the major field trial circuit. Plaintiff claimed that, in order to induce the plaintiff to purchase a bird dog then owned by the defendant, defendant falsely represented and warranted that the dog was of such quality and was, as is generally known in field trial parlance, a 'three-hour dog.' After plaintiff had the dog for a short time, the plaintiff found that the warranty as to soundness was not true but that the dog was infected with heart worms at the time of sale and was not a 'three-hour dog.' Thereupon the plaintiff sought to rescind the contract by returning the dog and demanding back the purchase price of which defendant refused. On appeal, defendant contended that the jury instructions failed to inform the jurors that where the sale of an animal for a particular purpose is involved, there can be no recovery for the breach of an implied warranty unless it is shown by the buyer that he or she made known to the seller the particular purpose for which the animal was being purchased and relied on the seller's skill and judgment. The Supreme Court noted that this case was not bottomed upon that theory, but upon the theory that the defendant expressly warranted the dog to be a 'three-hour dog.' This express warranty carried with it the implied warranties that the animal was sound physically, was finished in his training, and was capable of running three-hour races. In other words, the Court was of the opinion that the express warranties defined by the Court in the charge to the Jury embraced and included any defined, implied warranty.