[ca] Hoa Being Sued

Hi all, I sit on an HOA board in California and we are navigating this lawsuit that we have that named us as a co-defendant in an animal attack. Long story short, in Feb 2024, there was a homeowner (call her P) who got bit by a neighbors dog while they were all in the common area, P states that the child of the dog owner walks the dog and cannot manage the dog so it is able to escape the child and attack P. Plaintiff notified the HOA in Oct 2024, then before we could respond, they filed a lawsuit in Nov 2024. Plaintiff asserts it has caused them physical, psychological, and emotional damage. They are suing the renter (dog owner call them D1), owner of the home (D2), and the HOA (D3). We recently received a global settlement wherein all 3 defendants are to pay a sum of money to the plaintiff, ours being a five figure sum. We were aware D1 had a dog because they filled out the proper forms with the owner (D2) although I think its interesting to note P states they have a dog but have not filled out the paperwork for it (I dont know if that is worth anything maybe just an HOA thing we have to deal with). We have never been informed it was vicious or dangerous (although P asserts that everyone knows the dog is vicious) this was the first incident related to the dog that we were made aware of... our CC&Rs explicitly state pets are permitted and are the sole responsibility of the owner and that if they are vicious/dangerous we can take action which of course we would have if we had been informed.

One board member, that has been particularly challenging in general, has taken the role of communicator with the insurance lawyers and this and we havent really been kept in the loop about (which is another problem we're dealing with) all of this until recently when she forwarded the settlement and said we should move forward with this to just make her go away. Shes pressing us to move forward because it will cost more to fight it and that we will hold up the settlement for the other parties if we dont move forward.

Some of us on the board feel we should reach out to our HOA lawyer to discuss fighting this in court as we are worried if we roll over on this homeowners might get litigation happy for every confrontation they have with a homeowner before we can even address it. Would it be a good move taking this to court to save the association a five figure settlement and future attempts to sue us for money?

Thank you in advance for any advice, it is much appreciated.