deac83

Really can't make this stuff up. Came back to my hotel, a guest had a dog in the lobby, Not to go into all the details, the dog wound up biting me on the hand (drew blood etc).

Hotel website says cats and dogs under 40lbs allowed. This was a pit bull, clearly over 40 lbs. Allegedly it's an emotional support animal as well.

What's the hotel's liability vs. the guests here?

Police and paramedics involved. Police report and the dog is quarantined for 10 days, to verify no rabies. Supposedly has shots but not confirmed in writing yet.

Hotel did jack squat around this, not even following up with me or offering me bandaides etc.

SCPigskinPrep

Emotional support dogs are not recognized or protected by the ADA. They have no legal rights under the ADA.

BigJC

Lawyer up. They’ll have the answers you’re looking for. I’m speaking from experience.

craigthemif

Lawyer up and go after the dog's owner.

The hotel responsible for a dog in the lobby? Is that any different from the parking lot? I doubt you'd get far in court, but maybe the hotel will pay you off to make it go away.

escapefromphl

Go to the ER and get the wound properly cleaned. Also get a 2 week antibiotic treatment. Do not mess around with dog bites things can go seriously bad.

Often1

The "innkeepers" liability is determined by state (and sometimes local) law. You have not provided a location.

Deal with your medical issues first and foremost.

Once you have an idea what is involved, speak to your lawyer. Why focus on the property if you can do quite nicely with what might be a sufficiently wealthy or insured owner?

Nuhusky

Unfortunate thing here is the dog is probably going to pay the price for a bad owner. Likely to be put down, that makes me sad

yurtripper

I doubt there's a great deal of overlap between 'sufficiently wealthy' owners and pit bull owners.

FT

Bad take.

garykung

Hotel - Premise liability. Guest - None (Liability absorbed by Hotel)

The game is simple - You > Hotel; Hotel > Guest.

ADA has no standing here. Even a service animal attacked a person, the owner and the hotel have to be responsible.

No offense - This is an extremely bad advice.

1. Hotel definitely has insurance. And its pocket is for sure deeper that the guest for sure.

2. It is easier to sue a business than a person, as well as resolving the disputes.

3. Based on OP, by allowing a pit bull in a hotel as pet, Hotel may have engaged a practice that can deem as reckless disregard. Hotel can face punitive damage when warranted. But since the guest has the hotel's approval, and based on its causal occurrence (it was an accident after all), the guest will definitely be not liable for the punitive damage. So suing the hotel may yield a better result than the guest.

Pittie Pup

Sad to see you would try to make a correlation between an owners breed of dog and their financial status. In full disclosure, my wife and I have only ever owned "pitbulls". And contrary to your belief we do quite well for ourselves actually.

Admiral Ackbar

People love to judge based on appearances and feel better about themselves unfortunately. But dogs should never be put in the position where they bite and that is the owners responsibility.

This has nothing to with OPs horrible experience and I believe he should go after the hotel as well, not the owner. Not trying to minimize that at all, I just hate broad generalizations.

Pittie Pup

Can OP please provide the details of how their hand came to be in the proximity that allowed for said dog, with unknown previous interactions, to bite them? I don't usually make it a habit of placing my hands near the mouths of animals that I do not have regular familiarity with. I would be more embarrassed as a grown adult to admit I had engaged in such a seemingly careless act that resulted in my injury. If the dog had been running loose in the lobby or not under direct control of the owner then I apologize in advance as this is the result of an irresponsible dog owner.

Gig103

I'm sure those details will be in the police report and an attempt to victim blame is unwarranted.

clublounger

Nothing said after the OP's post matters, since OP refused to "go into all the details". I assume OP was taunting the dog. Dog owner should sue OP for animal cruelty. That assumption is as valid as every other assumption made so far.