Originally Posted by
Transpacificflyer
Fortunately, the courts and society in the civilized world have adopted the position that a disability due to a mental illness should not be treated any differently from that of a disability due to a physical injury or illness. Diabetics can sometimes act "crazy", so too can people on some medications that have nothing to do with mental illness. Elderly people can sometimes become confused and lash out. And on and on it goes.
I suppose we could have avoided all this if the fellow had not been deployed to a war zone in service of his country. Then the plaintiff would not have had to sit next to an injured veteran.
Please keep in mind that the claims of the plaintiff are allegations only and they have yet to be substantiated in fact. It is common practice for the worst possible scenario to be alleged in the initial filing. This does not mean that the event occurred as described.
The plaintiff is what can be described as a person of size, or POS. It is quite possible that the gentleman from Alabama may have have done something to the animal. This too will need to be verified in court.
The news reports do not mention that the victim did anything to “provoke” the dog. I do not think being a little larger than normal is justification for a 50 pound emotional support dog to bite someone in the face— more than once. If the dog was so fearful of close contact with strangers then the dog was not fit to fly. The owner was in the middle seat in economy with a 50 lb dog. If the dog was not able to handle the stress of that situation the owner should not take the dog.
I have volunteered for years with animal rescues and there are many people that excuse bad behavior or game the ESA situation — as in multiple ESA animals... refuse to muzzle biting ESA dogs...
Someone I know volunteers for early socialization for lab puppies before the intensive training for seeing eye service dogs and exposing the puppies to crowds and noise is part of it.
i sat behind a German Shepherd service dog on a flight from London to Zurich in Swiss Economy and the plane was packed— and it was July so a lot of families in the airport and crowds. That was an amazing dog who focused only on the handler/owner and had impressive training and was not bothered by the noise or crowds. ... And did not bite anyone in the face.