FARMINGTON — The mother of a boy bitten in the face two years ago by a rottweiler is suing the city of Farmington.
Jenessa Marie McCallister Hill, the mother, asks that the city pay an unspecified amount of money for her son’s past and future medical bills, pain, suffering and loss of life’s enjoyment, among other damages, according the lawsuit. The boy, Aiden McCallister-Weeth, who is also a plaintiff, was 6 at the time he was attacked.
Farmington City Attorney Jay Burnham declined to comment, aside from saying, “The facts of the case are under review.”
Farmington attorney Jack Fortner is representing Hill and her son. He filed the lawsuit in Aztec District Court on Nov. 24, two years after the attack, he said, because the family recently learned that plastic surgery could improve the condition of Aiden’s face, which was badly damaged.
“It was a very unfortunate incident,” he said. “He was bit by what is commonly considered a dangerous dog.”
Fortner expects the defendant, the city of Farmington, will settle the lawsuit.
The attack happened the afternoon of Nov. 25, 2012, when Aiden and his mother walked into the Farmington Petco location and immediately saw two dogs, one of which was a male rottweiler, according to the lawsuit.
The dogs were leashed next to a table, and two Farmington Animal Shelter employees sat behind the table, showcasing the canines for adoption, according to the lawsuit.
According to a Daily Times story published Dec. 5 that year, Aiden’s mother told the boy to “give the doggy a kiss,” according to Assistant City Manager Bob Campbell. But in another story published the next day, Hill says she did not tell her son to kiss the black rottweiler.
According to the lawsuit, Aiden knelt next to the dog and began petting it. First, though, he asked permission, the lawsuit states.
Then the dog bit Aiden’s face below his eye before biting his face several other times, refusing to release him — even when Hill grabbed her son — until one of the animal shelter employees pulled the
