Dillon v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr.

Citations

• 211 N.E.3d 746
• 2023 Ohio 942

Syllabus

Common Law Dog Bite—Vicious Dog Standard—Spoliation of Evidence. Court of Claims did not err when it adopted the magistrate's decision as its own and entered judgment for the ODRC on appellant-inmate's claims of negligence under a common law dog bite theory and spoliation of evidence. Trial court's findings that appellant did not prove dog's prior viciousness (essential element of common law dog bite claim) and failed to show that ODRC willfully destroyed notes kept by the dog's inmate-handlers for purposes of disrupting appellant's case (essential element of spoliation claim) were not against the manifest weight of the evidence. Appellant abandoned her traditional negligence claim in the trial court and did not argue the trial court applied the wrong legal standard for that claim on appeal. Judgment affirmed.