{"id":896969,"date":"2026-09-15T19:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/896969\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T19:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:18:10","slug":"neighbour-suing-surrey-mayoral-candidate-for-dog-bite-that-required-hospital-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/896969\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbour suing Surrey mayoral candidate for dog bite that required hospital visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surrey mayoral candidate Linda Annis is facing a civil lawsuit from a neighbour after her dog bit him on the arm last spring.<\/p>\n

Trent Punnett filed the lawsuit late Monday in B.C. Supreme Court, seeking general and special damages for the May 31 incident.<\/p>\n

In the suit, he claims he suffered “lacerations requiring sutures” and “significant bleeding,” mostly to his right arm, as well as a right ankle sprain.<\/p>\n

The details of the bite were originally reported by Global News, <\/a>which went to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to have records of the incident released after the City of Surrey denied multiple Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.<\/p>\n

Annis \u2014 a city councillor now running for mayor with Surrey First \u2014 initially described the bite<\/a> as a “nip” to Global News.<\/p>\n

She told CBC News she admits the incident left her neighbour with a wound that required hospital care.<\/p>\n

“I did not know what the wound looked like when I was originally asked by the reporter from Global because I had not seen it,” she said. “It was a dog bite.”<\/p>\n

Annis said she paid $700 in fines for the incident and having two unlicensed dogs.<\/p>\n

She said this is the first time something like this has occurred with her dalmatian Ron, or any of the 10 dogs she has raised.<\/p>\n

\"Linda<\/p>\n

Linda Annis’s dog, Ron, is pictured in an undated photo. (Submitted by Linda Annis)<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, Punnett alleges that Annis failed to adequately restrain or control the dog, and allowed the dalmatian to interact with him “when it was unsafe” to do so.<\/p>\n

Punnett says injuries have caused and continue to cause pain, suffering, permanent physical disability, loss of income, and other losses that he says warrant general and special damages.<\/p>\n

The bite<\/p>\n

The civil lawsuit doesn’t detail the incident, but Annis described things from her perspective in a witness statement to the city obtained by CBC News.<\/p>\n

According to the statement, the incident began when Annis’s neighbour greeted two of her dogs. Annis said the man didn’t ask for permission and that her dogs were agitated by his approach.<\/p>\n

“The individual initiated contact with the dogs and continued approaching them despite their barking, visible discomfort and unfamiliarity with him,” her statement reads.<\/p>\n

The man pet one of Annis’s dogs, according to the statement, and then went to pet Ron. It was then that Ron lunged at the man and bit him in the arm, Annis said.<\/p>\n

She said she asked her neighbour to see the bite and if she could help, but that he declined to show her and said he would go to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Annis told CBC News she has provided all of the information asked of her to relevant authorities in a timely manner, and that the city should have responded to FOI requests by Global News “in a much more timely fashion.”<\/p>\n

She said both of her dogs are now licensed and always on a leash, that there are warning signs around her property, and that Ron has to wear a muzzle and can’t go to dog parks.<\/p>\n

She hasn’t filed a response to the civil claim as of publication time.<\/p>\n

The City of Surrey did not confirm the incident involving Annis or details around it. CBC News has filed an FOI request with the city, which it said could take as long as 30 days to respond to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey mayoral candidate Linda Annis is facing a civil lawsuit from a neighbour after her dog bit him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,194869,41264,2921,19537,310490,310491,87674],"class_list":["post-896969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-of-surrey","tag-civil-lawsuit","tag-dog","tag-global-news","tag-linda-annis","tag-special-damages","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}