From the message board at www.pacificgrove.com
Olga said goodbye to viewers, on air, at the end of July. Her contract was up and she had been her 5 years and decided she wanted to return to Southern California to pursue TV and entertainment opportunities there. Southern California is home for her.
Thanks for taking the time to write and ask about her.
Have a safe and wonderful holiday.Traciann Zeravica
News Director, KION/KCBA/Telemundo23
William Gavin, the attorney for dog owner Donna Bazan and her father, Donald Armstrong — whom a jury found negligent because he didn’t do enough to stop the attack — filed a motion for a new trial and contends part of the jury’s award was unconstitutional.
“He asked Judge [Lydia] Villarreal to throw out parts of the jury verdict,” Ken Gorman, Ospina’s attorney, told The Pine Cone. “Specifically, the punitive damage award against Armstrong and the $7,500 for [Ospina’s] future pain and suffering.” In the motion, Gavin claims there was insufficient evidence to warrant punitive damages.
Attorney In Olga Ospina Dead Dog Trial Asks For Reduction In $$
After turning down a settlement of $40,000 she finds that twice that amount is sufficient. But she still does not get what she originally wanted, to kill the other dog. Lighthouseavenue.com post, 11/9/07:
But Olga Ospina wanted a different result. “Please help me, put this dog down” she said at the hearing Aug. 16.
A Superior Court jury awarded $87,000 Tuesday to local television anchorwoman Olga Ospina, whose dog was fatally mauled in a Pacific Grove attack three years ago.
Ospina testified the incident was emotionally draining. In 2007, the city determined the Labrador was not vicious and required the dog to undergo behavioral training.
Olga rejects settlement.
Though California doesn’t allow a person to financially recover for emotional distress from the death of an animal, Ospina’s attorney contends a jury will see that her need for treatment is a result of the attack that killed her dog.
Ospina’s pain and suffering alone is worth $70,000, according to the documents. The dog attack forced Ospina to miss about 16 days of work, which cost her $8,184, an amount characterized as a “fraction of her salary.”
Dog lovers, sheeshe.
“The actions and inactions of Donald Armstrong were grossly negligent, wanton, indifferent to humanity ….” according to Ospina’s lawsuit.
But in a court declaration in April, Bazan provided possible reason her father didn’t intervene, calling the 81-year-old “senile” with “diminishing reasoning abilities and slower thought processes.”
IN A lawsuit that seeks to set a new precedent for damages, a local news anchorwoman is suing the owner of a Labrador for emotional distress after the dog mauled her Maltese last year in front of the Pacific Grove post office.
. . Ospina is also seeking something California courts haven’t awarded before. She wants money for “severe emotional distress” she claims she suffered as a result of her dog being attacked.
Heretofore, “the law limits emotional distress damages to being in the presence of a close human relative who gets injured,” said Ospina’s Monterey attorney, Chuck Warner. “This is unique.”
Courts in most states, including California, view pets as personal property and limit compensation to the fair market value of the pet — including the pedigree of the animal, the purchase price and other criteria.
Noted a year ago – she want’s the other dog dead AND money, money, money
Professor Toro, Monterey’s original blogger writes:
On a recent Sunday, Conover retrieved her Labrador, Tuly, from her father’s house when a couple of German shepherds attacked and mauled them.
Conover jumped on her dog and tried to protect it from the dogs and, said her father, Kelley, “screamed bloody murder.”
Given a recent high-profile dog incident, the brutal attack of KION-TV news anchor Olga Ospina’s 2-year-old Maltese in front of the Pacific Grove post office, it appears that sleepy little P.G. might have a dog problem.
More like P.G. has a dog owner problem. Where oh where is Prof’s companion Pilon? Has Pilon been replaced by a dog?
The city of Pacific Grove did what it was supposed to do in the case of a dog attack last summer on another dog owned by a local television news anchor, a judge ruled Friday.
Judge Robert O’Farrell said he did not see a role for the court in the city’s handling of a hearing that stemmed from the July 25 incident.
Ospina’s lawyer Charles Warner said Sampson’s owner has not responded to Ospina’s claim for reimbursement of $21,000 in veterinary bills for her dog, which indicates she probably isn’t in compliance with other requirements set by the city.
“The city of Pacific Grove is legally correct,” O’Farrell said, adding that Ospina is free to bring other proceedings to recover her monetary losses.
What’s been said from the start – it’s a civil matter.
Ospina’s suit contends she was denied due process because of the switch from city to state law. It also alleges the hearing officer ignored witnesses’ accounts about which dog attacked. Ospina is seeking attorney’s fees, court costs and unspecified damages.
Her complaint was reviewed in closed session Tuesday by the Pacific Grove City Council. Assistant city attorney Heidi Quinn reported no council action was taken.
Let’s kill every potentially vicious dog that comes to P.G. Keep your mutts at home.
A TV news anchorwoman has filed a lawsuit against the City of Pacific Grove seeking to overturn a ruling that spared a black Labrador believed to have mauled her Maltese to death in front of the Pacific Grove Post Office in July.
In August, a city-appointed hearing officer decided the Labrador, owned by a Southern California woman, should be permanently banished from the city but not euthanized. The dog was returned to its family. But Olga Ospina wanted a different result. “Please help me, put this dog down” she said at the hearing Aug. 16.
Dogs and their owners, sheeshe.