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State Patrol can be sued over unprovoked K-9 attack

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The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an Owatonna car dealership employee can sue the State Patrol for injuries sustained in an unprovoked K-9 attack.

Cristina Berrier, who worked at the dealership that regularly services State Patrol vehicles, had sued after she was attacked on March 15, 2019 by Diesel, a K-9 service dog. Berrier alleged that she suffered serious and permanent injuries from the attack.

In a 4-2 decision, Justice Margaret H. Chutich wrote for the majority that the state was not immune from prosecution under Minnesota’s dog-bite statute.

“Because we conclude that the Legislature plainly, clearly, and unmistakably waived sovereign immunity for claims brought under the dog-bite statute, we hold that the State Patrol may be sued under that provision.” Chutich wrote.

A spokesperson for the State Patrol did not have immediate comment and said officials were reviewing the decision. Berrier’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.

Berrier’s lawsuit was initially filed in Steele County District Court, where a judge denied a motion to dismiss by the State Patrol. But the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled last year that the State Patrol could not be held liable under the statute, citing sovereign immunity — a legal doctrine which states that the government cannot be sued without its consent.

In overturning the Appeals Court Wednesday, the Supreme Court wrote that Minnesota’s Tort Claims Act established that the state can be held liable “under circumstances where the state, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant.”

Berrier alleged in her lawsuit that her injuries were “a direct and proximate result” of the State Patrol’s negligence.

While she did not cite Minnesota’s dog-bite statute, the Supreme Court did, saying it imposes “strict liability” on the owner of a dog if it attacks without provocation. It reads:

“The owner of the dog is liable in damages to the person so attacked or injured to the full amount of the injury sustained. The term ‘owner’ includes any person harboring or keeping a dog but the owner shall be primarily liable.”

Last year, Berrier’s attorney Grant Borgen told the Star Tribune that Berrier was seriously injured by Diesel, who Borgen said regularly hung out in the service bay area while the unnamed trooper brought his squad car in. Borgen said the trooper directed Berrier to put Diesel back in the squad car, and she followed his directive.

“She petted [Diesel] goodbye like she had done on occasions before that and the dog bit her,” Borgen said. “This dog was not trained to attack; it was a trained to detect narcotics.”

The bite on her hand required surgery to treat an infection, Borgen said.

Justice Karl C. Procaccini dissented from the majority opinion, citing the fact that the state’s dog-bite statute, “does not plainly, clearly, and unmistakably waive the State’s sovereign immunity.”

Chief Justice Natalie E. Hudson joined Procaccini in his dissent, while Justice Sarah E. Hennesy took no part in the decision.

Star Tribune staff writer Kim Hyatt contributed to this report.



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Mahtomedi volleyball keeps clicking, stays undefeated with sweep of South St. Paul

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Mahtomedi’s volleyball team started the 2023 season 3-7. But still, the Zephyrs peaked at the right time and made it to state for a second year in a row.

This go-around, undefeated Mahtomedi (10-0) hasn’t taken long at all to start clicking.

On Tuesday night, 14 kills each from senior outside hitter Kaili Malvey and senior middle blocker Silvie Graetzer helped the Zephyrs sweep visiting South St. Paul 25-17, 25-18, 25-10.

After the program’s first trip to state in 2022, then returning in 2023, the team is thriving. With seven seniors and five juniors on the roster and all its starters returning, Mahtomedi “started at such a higher point this season,” Graetzer said. “And now our end goal is so much higher. We’re not there to get to state. We’re there to do damage at state.”

Against South St. Paul (14-4), the Zephyrs dealt with injuries to two sidelined starters heading into the match and faced the Packers’ high-swinging outside hitter, senior Alaina Panagiotopoulos.

“[Our injured players, Sahar Ramaley and Katie Hergenrader] pushed us to play for each other, and I think we really executed,” Malvey said.

Nine digs and 14 service receptions by junior libero Claire Crothers, plus six blocks by Graetzer, helped numb the swinging sting of Panagiotopoulos’ eight kills. They prepped for her in practice, focusing on eye work in blocking drills and taking up space on the court.

Another offseason key for the Zephyrs took place 10 minutes down the road in Lake Elmo. While not all of last year’s starters played club, all of them participated in club training this year, with a big Zephyrs contingent at Kokoro Volleyball. Even if the Zephyrs weren’t on the same team at Kokoro, they saw each other in the weight room, learned similar schemes.



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A guaranteed income program for Minnesota artists gets extended and expanded

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St. Paul is among the cities that have tried sending money to very low-income residents, studying the results. When Springboard launched its project in 2021, it was one of the nation’s first guaranteed income programs aimed at artists.

“It’s not because we think artists are more deserving or more worthy than anyone else,” said Laura Zabel, Springboard’s executive director. Creative work is one form of labor that, like caregiving, “our economy doesn’t value” but that communities need — now more than ever, she said.

“I love thinking about guaranteed income as a way of honoring that we all have contributions to make to our community, and we need a little bit of time and space and breathing room to make those contributions,” Zabel said.

A similar experiment also started in 2021 in San Francisco, run by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, has ended. In 2022, the Creatives Rebuild New York program began providing some 2,400 artists in New York with $1,000 per month for 18 months. That same year, Ireland’s government began providing 2,000 artists about $350 a week, or about $18,200 a year, as part of a three-year pilot program.

Every 18 months, Springboard has extended its program’s funding. Now, it’s guaranteeing artists five years of income. The first 25 participants, who have received income since 2021, will see that money continue for two more years. Those who started receiving it 18 months ago, including 25 artists in Otter Tail County, will continue. And the 25 new recipients there will begin the program knowing they’ll get money for five years.

“So, from a research perspective, that’s very exciting — to be able to research and understand some of the difference between folks who know from the beginning the longer time horizon,” Zabel said, “and what that allows them to do in terms of planning and commitment to their community.”



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Duluth man pleads guilty to killing girlfriend who had a no-contact order against him

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DULUTH — A Duluth man who said he doesn’t remember killing his girlfriend pleaded guilty to second-degree murder without intent Tuesday in St. Louis County court — a plea deal that could land him in prison longer than sentencing guidelines would dictate.

Dale John Howard, 25, told Judge Theresa Neo that he doesn’t remember it but believes he caused the death of his girlfriend, Allisa Marie Vollan, 27, on March 22. Vollan, described on a fundraising site as a “bright young lady” with “an abundance of friends,” had a no-contact order against Howard at the time of her death. Howard could be sentenced to 20 years in prison — more than seven years longer than Minnesota’s presumptive guideline for the murder. According to the county attorney’s office, the longer sentence is legal because of the active domestic abuse no-contact order against him.

Howard’s sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 14.

According to court documents, officers responded to a morning call at Howard’s Central Hillside apartment and found him beneath a blanket with Vollan, who was dead. He told officers that he had hung out with Vollan late the previous night, then left to meet friends at a bar, and Vollan went to sleep in a guest room. When he tried to move her into his bedroom the next morning, she wasn’t breathing. He called his father, who was at the apartment when Duluth police arrived.

Neighbors in the upper level of the duplex told officers that, in the time before Howard would have left for the bar, they heard a woman crying and an angry male voice. They heard muffled moaning, thuds and the sound of something being dragged. They recorded it.

A preliminary autopsy by the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office found that Vollan had likely been smothered.

Earlier the same month, Howard had been arrested after neighbors saw him repeatedly slam Vollan’s head into a door. The no-contact was issued by a St. Louis County judge.



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