Woman who sued police dog over buttocks bite fined

[March 31, 2009]  WARREN, Mich. (AP) -- A woman sued a police dog that she blamed for injuries after it bit her in the buttocks.

To a suburban Detroit judge, the bottom line was that the lawsuit was frivolous. So Warren District Judge David Viviano slapped 55-year-old Inez Starks with a $500 fine.

The Eastpointe woman filed a lawsuit last August against the city of Warren, several police officers and Liberty, a German shepherd dog in the police department's K-9 unit.

Starks claims she has suffered nerve damage since Liberty bit her during an April 2007 confrontation among police, her daughter and others.

But according to The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens, neither police nor city attorney Raechel Badalamenti found any evidence Starks was bitten.

A telephone listing for Starks could not be located Saturday.

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Information from: The Macomb Daily, http://www.macombdaily.com/

[Associated Press]

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