Can An Employer Be Liable If An Employee's Service Dog Bites Someone?
I work in accessibility services at a university. A student of ours has a service dog. They are having difficulty finding a placement as a student teacher, because the schools want them to have personal liability insurance. Could the school be held liable if an animal belonging to an employee/volunteer bites someone?
We recommend that students get personal liability insurance for their service dogs, but we don't/can't enforce that.
And just FYI to anyone who reads this who thinks that a real service dog would never bite someone: I don't know how it works for employers, but the university can legally only ask "Is it a service dog?" and "What service does it perform?" We are not allowed to ask for any verification that it has been through service dog training. So, as far as I know, the employer can't exactly protect themselves from liability by verifying that the dog has been "properly" trained.
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