A Mississippi woman sued her local Penny Pinchers and its store manager after she injured herself while running away from a dog that was in the store.
 
Lentra Outlaw, who is terrified of dogs, claimed that a dog came charging down the aisle toward her, prompting her to leap atop a freezer.  The jump aggravated a previously existing hip injury.
 
Outlaw sued Penny Pinchers and Cindy Scott, the store manager who owned the vicious attack dog, 4-month-old Sophie, a Dachshund puppy weighing in at just under four pounds.  According to news reports, Scott had been bringing the dog to work every day and it had never attacked anyone. 
 
A Mississippi state court jury found for Outlaw and awarded her $130,000, finding Penny Pinchers 70 percent at fault and Scott 30 percent to blame. On appeal, the Mississippi Court of Appeals took note of a previous Mississippi Supreme Court decision that held that dogs are not dangerous per se and that to impose liability on a dog owner for personal injuries, a plaintiff must show the dog had a propensity for violence and that the owner knew it. The appeals court went on to hold that a premises does not have to be completely safe from any hazard — only reasonably safe — and that the plaintiff’s own actions can be considered in determining liability.
 
“We acknowledge Outlaw’s extreme fear of dogs,” Judge Thomas Griffis wrote for the court in overturning the jury’s verdict. “However, we cannot say that it was reasonable for Penny Pinchers to anticipate that anyone, even someone with a great fear of dogs, would have such a reaction to Sophie’s presence in the store.”
 
—Source:  San Francisco Examiner