Thumb bitten off by dog prompts lawsuit between Olathe neighbors

An Olathe woman is suing her neighbor after the neighbor’s dog bit off “a significant portion of her thumb.”

The suit filed this week in Johnson County District Court says the neighbor was negligent in failing to control her dog Jetson, a “dangerous and volatile dog that had attacked other dogs and people.”

In her suit, Sonja Patton said that on April 23, Jetson attacked her smaller dog, Toker. Patton was bitten while trying to rescue her dog.

Doctors were not able to reattach her thumb, and Patton is now permanently disfigured, according to the lawsuit.

The suit says Jetson’s owner, Mary Beth Johnston, witnessed the incident but either “would not or could not” stop the attack because she had “little or no control over Jetson.”

Patton believes that the dog was “destroyed” after the April attack.

Jetson had previously attacked one of Patton’s other dogs and bit her husband as he tried to stop the attack, according to the suit.

This story was originally published August 24, 2017 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Thumb bitten off by dog prompts lawsuit between Olathe neighbors."