Bite case makes it to Texas Supreme Court

AUSTIN, Texas — It’s not often that a dog bite case makes it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, but this one involves a bombsniffing dog trained in the Texas Hill Country and deployed to help military operations in Afghanistan.

Lawyers on both sides warn that the outcome could have farreaching effects on the military and those who help fight our wars.

Kallie was a Belgian malinois assigned to Camp Mike Spann, an Army base conducting combat operations against the Taliban. Her job was to locate the top killer of troops in Afghanistan — roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices.

LaTasha Freeman was a civilian employee making $100,000 a year as an administrative clerk at the base.

In November 2011, Kallie escaped from her kennel and jumped Freeman, who said the dog knocked her down, gripped her left arm and shook violently. There was no bleeding or outward sign of injury, but Freeman was eventually diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome, a nerve injury that left her unable to work and declared “completely disabled” by the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Freeman sued, seeking more than $1 million from two companies — Hill Country Dog Center, which trained Kallie and her handler at its Bandera County location, and American K-9 Detection Services, a contractor that provides the U.S. military with working dogs to hunt bombs.

A district judge in Bandera County tossed out Freeman’s lawsuit in 2014, but a state appeals court overturned that ruling and reinstated her complaint.

Now the companies have asked the Texas Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit once and for all.

At its core, this is a classic dog bite case involving an alleged victim seeking compensation for an injury.

But Wallace Jefferson, a lawyer for American K-9, argued that Freeman’s lawsuit should be voided because the courts have limited jurisdiction over injuries that occur in combat zones.

“Camp Mike Spann was a forward operating base situated in Afghanistan on the front lines of American hostilities. Its operations were designed to crush the Taliban,” Jefferson told the Supreme Court during oral arguments last month.

American K-9, like other military contractors, was a critical component of the Army’s war effort, particularly because its dogs proved so effective at finding improvised explosive devices, “one of the most dangerous threats” faced by U.S. and allied troops, Jefferson said.

What’s more, he said, state courts are barred from evaluating the military’s wartime decisions.

“This is more than a dog-bite case; it asks whether a Bandera County jury can tell the executive how best to defend the United States of America,” Jefferson told the court in a pre-argument brief.

But Chad Flores, Freeman’s lawyer, warned that American K-9 is asking the court to go too far.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case by late June or early July.