Dog owner ordered to pay woman $50k after his dog attacked toddler in Sydenham

A man has been ordered to pay $50,000 damages to a woman who was physically and psychologically injured after his dog attacked her two-year-old daughter.

A dog owner has been ordered to pay $50,000 damages to a woman who was injured after his bulldog attacked her two-year-old daughter.

Souad Bouali had sued Mathew Rangihuna for physical and psychological damages after she was forced to fend off the dog in Sydenham’s Tillman Park in February 2016.

The panicked mother-of-five intervened when the dog mauled her daughter, biting the toddler on the left eye.

A dog attack has cost its owner $50,000. Picture: iStock

The NSW District Court heard on Friday that Ms Bouali wrestled the dog on the ground but lacked the strength to stop it from biting her daughter.

Panicked, she managed to lift her daughter to shoulder height while she tried to kick the dog away. While doing this, she sustained an ankle injury

The young girl was taken to The Children’s Hospital at Randwick suffering severe facial injuries that required surgery. She was in hospital for three days.

“The occasion was undoubtedly horrendous to the plaintiff,” Judge Leonard Levy told the court. “Plainly, she had been put in considerable fear at the sight and sound of her young child being mauled by the defendant’s bulldog. It must have been a shocking experience for her to have endured.”

The circumstances of the dog attack were not in dispute during the case, but Ms Bouali sued claiming the incident aggravated pre-existing physical and psychological symptoms.

Five months after the dog attack Ms Bouali was diagnosed with probable melancholic depression and severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

The incident also aggravated previous physical ailments, including a back problem from an incident where she had fallen off a balcony.

Judge Levy ruled that her physical ailments were exacerbated by the incident, but told the court her psychological suffering was even worse.

“In this case (Ms Bouali) was already affected by the limiting effects of her prior physical problems which were temporarily made worse by the incident,” Judge Levy said.

“And her pre-existing depressive symptoms have been significantly eclipsed and overtaken by her persistent depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.”