Is Sam a Dangerous Dog? A Lawsuit Divides a Manhattan Building.

NEW YORK — The rental building at 175 W. 79th St. — in the heart of the Upper West Side — would seem like a dream, roughly equidistant from the American Museum of Natural History and Zabar’s.

Realtors extol its luxury, prewar details and list two-bedroom units there for upward of $6,000 a month.

But beware: Lurking in the lobby or elevator is Sam, an emotional support dog effectively terrorizing the building.

So says a lawsuit filed last month by a tenant who was attacked in the elevator in September by Sam, a mixed-breed rescue dog, and needed medical attention. The tenant later discovered that Sam had been involved in roughly a dozen other altercations with residents, staff members and delivery workers in and around the building.

The dog once rushed at a delivery worker in the elevator and bit him while in midair, the lawsuit says. He lunged at a man waiting for a crosstown bus just outside the building. He attacked a door attendant in the elevator and “wildly thrashed his mouth back and forth” against the man’s leg, trying to break free of the muzzle he was wearing, according to the lawsuit.

The suit blames Sam’s owners for failing to take preventive action and for refusing to give up the dog or move out. It also claims that the building’s owner and management company, both named as defendants, were aware of the dog’s aggressive behavior but failed to stop it or notify tenants.

Suing over dog attacks is hardly uncommon in the United States. There were 19,062 dog bite liability claims filed across the country in 2023, with payouts totaling more than $1.1 billion, according to the Insurance Information Institute, with 851 claims in New York state and $56.7 million in payouts.

But the details of this lawsuit, and those involved, are unique. The plaintiff, Joe Venafro, 48, is a television news producer who survived six months of bomb sweeping embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. He is being represented by Jeffrey K. Levine, a personal injury and civil rights lawyer who has represented Michael Cohen, a onetime fixer for former President Donald Trump. Venafro is suing Sam’s owners, Alan Katz and Inna Fayenson, who are both lawyers themselves.

After Sam attacked another neighbor two winters ago, the suit says, Fayenson asked that neighbor not to tell the landlord and sweetened the request by giving her an expensive box of cookies from Levain Bakery.

The issue has become the talk of the building and has split loyalties even among staff members.

It has also made headlines, some even before the lawsuit was filed. In an October article about how Sam was terrorizing the building, The New York Post referred to him as “the Upper West Side’s most feared emotional support dog.”

The lawsuit, which frequently refers to Sam simply as “animal,” details a dozen instances of the dog variously lunging at tenants, snapping and snarling — sometimes restrained, sometimes not — in the elevator, in the hallways, in the lobby and on the sidewalk outside the building.

Venafro said in an interview that management officials predicted a lengthy legal process since Fayenson was insistent that Sam, as her support animal, was protected by federal law.

Federal and state laws do protect tenants with emotional support animals against no-pet policies and removal, but not if the animals become a danger to others.

A dog can generally be labeled an emotional support animal with a doctor’s letter. Critics have complained that the status is too easy to attain, including through websites that charge fees to generate doctor’s notes without physically examining applicants.

The animals do not enjoy protections as strong as service dogs, which are trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. But taking improper action against even an emotional support dog could expose a building’s management to legal action, resulting in a fine and damages.

Calls to the owner of 175 W. 79th St. and its management company, Rotner Management, were not returned. Fayenson and Katz did not respond to requests for comment. The couple has another dog besides Sam who does not have a reputation for aggressive behavior and is not named in the lawsuit.

Levine said it had been hard to get anyone to do anything about Sam, both before and after the lawsuit. Contacting the police, city agencies and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals yielded scant results or answers, he said.

“It was very frustrating — I’m a lawyer experienced in dealing with government agencies and departments, and even I could not get cooperation from any one of them,” he said.

There are roughly half a million dogs in New York, according to estimates from city officials, and no shortage of headlines about doggy dust-ups.

There was the pair of pit bulls that terrorized Manhattan’s Turtle Bay neighborhood in 2004, and the 98-pound white German shepherd named Syko, who was the unofficial mascot of a quaint little bookstore on the Upper East Side and had a penchant for eviscerating smaller dogs.

In 2009, a lawyer who lived on Central Park West filed a suit claiming that the intense “whining, barking, yapping and squealing” by her neighbor’s two Chihuahuas was causing agonizing back pain.

Venafro’s suit claims that Sam’s owners typically ignored or dismissed responsibility for the altercations by saying that he loves most people and blaming the victims.

In the Post article, Katz and Fayenson played down the episodes, saying that Sam had merely lunged against his leash, something that other dogs in the building do.

Katz was quoted indicating that Venafro’s injuries were not severe, and noting that he was never admitted to a hospital. Fayenson said the couple had started muzzling the dog after Venafro was injured.

Viviane Arzoumanian, a certified dog trainer and behavior consultant in Brooklyn, said a dog seen as dangerous could often sharply divide neighbors in a building and lead to legal action instead of workable solutions.

Most dog owners tend to take swift action after even one attack, to ensure that the animal does not cause any further harm, she said.

“Usually in a situation like this, the owner would be seriously embarrassed by their dog’s behavior and worried about him hurting more people, and would employ a trainer and always keep the dog muzzled in public areas of the building,” she said.

“It’s sad, because I can completely believe that this dog who is frightening to other people, is very beloved to this couple and does offer solace to his owner who needs him, but that’s not what the public sees.”

Levine said he had affidavits from people involved in the altercations with Sam and video footage of some of the attacks. Those people either failed to return a reporter’s calls or refused to comment. “They’re scared to complain because they’re scared of losing their apartment,” Levine said, referring to those involved.

In addition to seeking financial damages for pain and suffering, Venafro’s suit claims that Sam’s owners slandered and defamed him by telling neighbors that “nothing happened” to him.

He said that while riding an elevator with Sam in September, the dog lunged at him and bit his midsection, leaving numerous bite wounds around a sensitive scar from an operation related to his Crohn’s disease.

Fayenson did not help or apologize, he said.

“She said something like, ‘Oh, my God, that never happens,’” he said. “I was disgusted by her lack of sympathy.”

Venafro said he called 911 and that when officers responded, Sam’s owners finally apologized in front of them — but Fayenson and Katz denied that Sam had been involved in other violent episodes.

“I’m not one to complain about any little thing,” Venafro said.

Venafro, who said he had a compromised immune system, sought treatment at a local urgent care center, where he was prescribed antibiotics and vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.

Venafro said that after the attack, his door attendant told him that another door attendant in the building had previously complained of a run-in with Sam. Venafro started canvassing the building, and after hearing more horror stories, quickly came to the realization that he wasn’t alone.

“Out of the woodwork, people started approaching me,” he said. “It was alarming that a lot of people had had incidents with this dog, and I wanted to know why the dog was still in the building.”

Soon after, a neighbor of his began slipping flyers under tenants’ doors warning them to “protect yourself and your family” from dog attacks and to avoid riding the elevator with the couple’s two dogs.

A notice was also taped to the elevator wall announcing a muzzle requirement for dogs in the building. Venafro said it remained mostly unenforced.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .