In late August, Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman allowed a lawsuit springing from a fatal dog mauling to proceed against the county in part on the question of the destruction of county records relevant to the case.
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Since 2015, the estate of Klonda Richey has sued former Montgomery County dog warden Mark Kumpf and county commissioners, alleging that Kumpf failed in his duty to enforce laws that may have given Richey some protection from a neighbor’s dogs.
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On the question of whether county records relevant to the lawsuit were intentionally destroyed or allowed to be destroyed, Wiseman wrote in August that the matter was a “genuine issue of material fact,” meaning that a trial will have to decide that issue.
Shortly after Wiseman’s ruling, Sandner filed an appeal against it to the Second District Court of Appeals.
A spokeswoman confirmed the commissioners’ vote but referred questions about the appeal to the county prosecutor’s office.
The lawsuit goes back to a 2014 fatal dog mauling in Dayton. Richey was attacked and killed by two mixed mastiffs in her 31 E. Bruce Ave. driveway.
Richey, then 57, was found dead outside in sub-freezing temperatures on the morning of Feb. 7, 2014. When police responded to the scene, the nearby dogs charged them and were shot and killed.
In an email sent to the Dayton Daily News in September, Sandner wrote; “This was a tragedy in which Klonda Richey lost her life, due to the actions of two large dogs. The issues of fact presented by this lawsuit will have to be decided by a jury at trial.”
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