Two people have sued Sioux City, Iowa, over its ordinance banning pit bulls.
The Sioux City Journal reports the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Sioux City. In it, Jennifer Frost and a woman referred to as Jane Doe ask the court to bar the city from enforcing the ordinance and to outlaw it as a violation of their constitutional right to due process.
The lawsuit says the ordinance, passed in 2008, is enforced in an inconsistent and arbitrary manner, and bans animals that are not harmful. The ban prohibits residents from having dogs that are at least 51 percent pit bull.
The Sioux City Council passed the ban because at that time a high number of dogs that had been declared vicious or at risk in the city were pit bulls or mixed breeds. In 2010, the council voted to retain the ban.
Frost said that she placed her dog Jake, a purebred Staffordshire bull terrier, with family in New York to comply with the ordinance. Frost said in the lawsuit that she’s concerned the city could impound and euthanize her other dog, which is a mixed breed.
Jane Doe said in the lawsuit that her dog looks similar to Jake, and that she is afraid her dog could be subject to the pit bull ban ordinance.
The ordinance describes a pit bull as an American pit bull terrier, an American Staffordshire terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier or any dog that looks like or has characteristics of one of those breeds.
City officials declined to comment about the lawsuit.
Topics Lawsuits
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