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MARENGO — The Marengo City Council approved the final reading this month of changes to its animal protection and control ordinance.
The change is meant to clean up code sections 55.23 and 55.24 following a dog-bite case in Marengo last summer.
Following a bench trial June 18, Judge Kandyce Smolik found Tiffany Gotsis, of Marengo, not guilty of allowing an animal to run after, chase or attack a person.
“Based upon the evidence presented, the Court finds Defendant not guilty and orders that this case is dismissed,” Smolik wrote in an Order of Dismissal July 8.
Gotsis, who acted as her own attorney, didn’t deny that her dog bit a three-year-old girl in her home but argued that the dog was in its own home and the girl and her father had entered the house before Gotsis could secure the dog.
Smolik gave no details in her decision to dismiss, and the City of Marengo filed a Notice of Appeal July 26.
In December, Mark Fisher, District Court Judge, 6th Judicial District of Iowa, upheld Smolik’s decision.
The court was unable to determine what grounds the magistrate relied on in her decision, the appeal ruling says, or what if any evidence the magistrate found credible or not because the magistrate’s order doesn’t indicate what specifically she relied upon in making this determination, so the court was left with no specific findings to review, Fisher wrote in his decision.
The city argued in a brief that the underlying facts of the case were undisputed, the ordinance’s language is clear and the defendant’s dog was responsible for the child’s injuries.
Attorney Richard Pazdernik Jr. argued for Gotsis that Smolik properly found that the city ordinance only applies to public spaces, that the victim deprived the defendant the opportunity to restrain her dog and that the defendant had no duty of care to someone entering her house unexpectedly.
The city argued in an Oct. 7 court filing that the ordinance applies to private and public spaces and that the victim was invited to the defendant’s house and was not trespassing.
Fisher agreed with the defendant that Marengo Municipal Code Section 55.24 contains limiting language “while latter is on public property.”
But Fisher also said the defendant was cited under the wrong ordinance. Ordinance 55.23 describes the offense of allowing a dog to run after, chase or attack a person, while 55.24 names the penalty. The citation names only the penalty provision (55.24), not the actual offense.
In response to the appeals court’s decision, the City of Marengo vacated Section 55.24, clarified 55.23 and changed some fines in section 4.01.