Negligence: Employee must pursue remedy for dog bite via worker’s compensation

Where the employer required an employee to be around the employer’s dogs and she was bitten while handling the horse in close proximity to the dog, her dog bite injury arose out of her employment and her exclusive remedy therefore lay in the Workers’ Compensation Act.

Background

Catherine B. Vidunas appeals the circuit court’s order granting the special plea in bar filed by Camp Mont Shenandoah Limited and Ann Warner. She contends that the circuit court erred by finding that her dog bite injury arose out of her employment and that her exclusive remedy therefore lay in the Workers’ Compensation Act. She also appeals the circuit court’s order denying her motion for reconsideration arguing that the defendants failed to perfect their cross-appeal of the district court’s denial of their plea in bar.

Employment

To determine whether a workplace injury arose out of the employment, Virginia follows the “actual risk” test; the test is met when “the employment subject[s] the employee to the particular danger that brought about his or her injury.” “The ‘arising out of’ requirement focuses on ‘the origin or cause of the injury’” and is satisfied “‘if there is a causal connection between the claimant’s injury and the conditions under which the employer requires the work to be performed.’” “Put another way, an actual risk of employment is ‘not merely the risk of being injured while at work’” but is one that is “‘peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood.’”

Here, Vidunas’s employer required Vidunas to be around the employer’s dogs and she was bitten while handling the horse in close proximity to the dog. Vidunas’s employer required her to run behind a horse, making loud noises and slapping the horse’s rump, while the employer ran alongside with her dog. Those were the conditions of Vidunas’s employment.

The fact that Warner required Vidunas to be around Otis and Rollins increased Vidunas’s risk of suffering a dog bite injury, particularly because Otis had bitten someone before. Moreover, it was reasonably foreseeable that the conditions increased the risk of one of the dogs biting Vidunas, either because they were excited by the loud noises or because they perceived a threat to Warner as Vidunas ran behind her. Accordingly, the circuit court did not err in concluding that Vidunas’s injury arose out of her employment.

Appeal

Vidunas contends that the defendants failed to perfect their cross-appeal by paying the writ tax and costs to the circuit court instead of the district court, depriving the circuit court of subject matter jurisdiction over the amended special plea in bar. Because the amended special plea in bar was merely a defensive pleading, however, the defendants were not required to pay a writ tax and costs before the circuit court could consider their argument. Accordingly, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by denying Vidunas’s motion for reconsideration.

Affirmed.

Vidunas v. Camp Mont Shenandoah Limited, Record No. 2008-24-3, Nov. 5, 2025. CAV (unpublished opinion) (Friedman). From the Circuit Court of Bath County (Stein). Gregory S. Hooe (Steven G. Friedman; Marks & Harrison, P.C., on briefs), for appellant. John L. Cooley (John C. Singleton; Law Office of Cooley and Associates PLC; Singleton Law, on brief), for appellees. VLW 025-7-324. 11 pp.