Sued on Account of Dumb Douchery and a Dog Bite

I recently brought to an end a lawsuit that had been hanging over my head for over two years. It wasn’t a major lawsuit, not a very serious situation or a ton of money at stake, but the event and reasons on which it was predicated were so stupid and unfair that it took me until the past weak to say, Fuck it, and give in. Yes, I did give in. I caved. I paid. It was bullshit, and I paid.

Here’s what happened.

In spring of 2019, I had to take my car to a Toyota dealership for a recall servicing. It was early on a Saturday morning. I brought my dog, Logan, with me. I brought him with me to most places, and as the dealership was a couple miles from home and I knew the car would be stuck there for hours, I planned to leave the car and walk home with him. He was in the back seat of the car, wearing a harness seat belt that I’d bought to keep him from falling over into the footwell whenever the car made a sharp turn or a quick brake, and to keep him safe in the event of a crash. I parked the car and went into the dealership. I was greeted by a man who didn’t appear to be a total moron, though I’d soon be disabused of that generous appraisal. He asked me to take him out to my car so he could get some information from it. As we were walking across the parking lot, I told him that my dog was in the car and asked him to wait until I took Logan out.

He said, “Okay,” then proceeded to open the front door of my car and let himself in before I’d had the chance to take Logan out the back door.

Logan, perturbed by the intrusion of the large male human, was on edge and growled. I held him and told him that it was okay, and so he remained calm and kept the safety on.

After the dealership employee got out of the car and closed the door, I let go of Logan, told him he was a good boy, then closed the rear door. The dealership guy asked me to move the car to the front of the building. I did, then left Logan inside, harnessed, with the windows open enough for him to have a breeze and breathe, but not enough for him to stick his face through.

The dealership douche and I dealt with paperwork inside for a few minutes before he suddenly got up from his desk and said he had to go “check something.” He didn’t say what he was going to check. He didn’t say he was about to go outside and into my car, which I’d just told him not to do, on account of my dog being in there. If he had, I would have yelled at him not to, I might have tackled him to stop him.

Watching from his desk, I saw him leave the office. I got up. I saw him walking towards my car. I started hurrying to the office door, saying, “Nononononononono!” I heard and saw Logan barking in the back seat of the car as this big dumb cracker threw open the driver’s door, plopped himself into the seat, and pressed the ignition.

A second later, I heard a yelp, and the guy jumped back out, slammed the door behind him and said, “That dog just bit me!”

Logan had nipped him on his right elbow, breaking the stretchy, loose skin. The dealership employee went and cleaned the small flesh wound. When I saw him again minutes later, he had on a bandage, but said that it was okay. We shook hands.

It was only weeks later that I found out that after I’d left, he went to the emergency room, and took time off work, and filed for worker’s compensation. He racked up a bill of almost three-thousand dollars, and the insurance company that paid that bill forwarded it to me.

For months they sent threatening letters, demanding payment. When I was actually able to get someone from the insurance company on the phone, and explained what had happened, that the employee’s injury wasn’t because of negligence or irresponsibility on my part, but occured because the employee ignored my explicit instruction, and the warning of a barking dog, she said, “Oh, that changes things.”

But it didn’t. The letters continued coming months later. The “case” had been bumped up to the company’s legal department, and the woman I’d spoken to wasn’t heard from again. I explained myself again to the new cronies and they gave not a shit. Citing California’s status as a “strict liability state” when it comes to dog bites, they insisted that they’d be filing a lawsuit against me if I didn’t pay them.

Nearly two years passed.

As we reached the two year mark, the point at which the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit over a dog bite expires, they offered a settlement: $1000. They’d been demanding almost 3k but were now willing to take just over a third of that. Intuition, and some lawyerly friends and acquaintances, told me that this meant they knew their case was bullshit, that they were ready to cut and run. I was advised, and believed, that this was a sign that they didn’t actually want to go to court, to waste the time and expense on what was, for them, a paltry sum of money. With all eloquence and politeness, I told them to fuck themselves.

I believed the matter ended.

We passed the two year mark.

Then I was served papers. They’d filed against me the day before the two year mark came.

At first, after the initial panic and fury subsided, I figured, fine, I’ll go to court. But going to court isn’t as simple as just showing up at the appointed date and time, telling the truth, and having your bullshit harassing problem go away. There are forms to fill out, appointments to make, fees to pay. And after working and stewing for several days, I decided, Fuck it. I offered to pay the fuckers a thousand dollars plus the cost of their filing fee. And as angry as I am about the whole situation, and disappointed with myself for not seeing it through, ultimately I feel good about the decision.

This bullshit had been weighing on me for over two years. Through the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic and the death of my beloved and loving, if aggressively protective and territorial, dog Logan, these fuckers kept on me. In the end, I just wanted it over, and reasoned that my mental health was worth the expense.

If there’s a moral to this story, and it isn’t that I should have kept fighting at all costs, it’s that corporations are relentlessly evil and petty and deserve to be destroyed, insurance is a scam industry, there’s no accounting for the actions of jackasses who don’t know better than to ignore you when you warn them to stay away from your fucking dog, and that money and principles are worth less than your health and well being.

Also, if you ever have to send a bullshit payoff check to some jackoff lawyer at a piece of shit company, be sure to wipe the check on your bare asshole before putting it in the envelope.