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SCRANTON, Pa. - A judge's ruling sets the stage for trial in a snakebite lawsuit, leaving jurors to sort out the different stories told by the mother of a boy allegedly bitten and his grandparents who say there were no snakes in their house.
Scranton federal judge Karoline Mehalchick on June 16 denied the motion for summary judgment of defendants Robert and Maria Johnson, who were sued in 2023 by Irina Mayman.
The lawsuit claims Mayman's son was at the Johnsons' house in Saylorsburg, where the boy's dad Greg Johnson lives. Mayman and her sons live in New York. Allegedly, Greg kept snakes at the Saylorsburg house and was showing one to his son when it bit him.
But the Johnsons dispute this, claiming either there were no snakes or they were unaware of them, because if Greg had any, they would have been on the second floor of the house and their disabilities keep them from going upstairs.
Evidence shows there were snakes at the house but it remains to be sorted whether the Johnsons knew.
"A reasonable juror could find either Plaintiff's or Defendants' testimony credible," Mehalchick wrote.
"Setting aside the testimony introduced by the parties, the Court is left with little to determine the degree of knowledge or control Defendants had over the snakes that were allegedly kept on their property."
The lawsuit said Greg, who had partial custody of his son E.J. over summers during a separation from Mayman, had a hobby/small business of selling venomous snakes and has a license to do so.
In 2021, it was alleged Greg gave E.J. a snake to hold but it wrapped its tail around the boy's wrist and bit him in the finger. Greg administered anti-venom, the suit says.
Now, the question of a cover-up: E.J. says he told his grandmother about the bite but she punished him for using her phone to record the snake hissing and told him Greg could be sent to jail if E.J. told anyone.
But E.J.'s deposition says he did not tell his grandparents he was bitten by a snake. It's all part of contradictory testimony the jury will need to sort through, like Maria Johnson saying son Greg "never" had snakes in the Saylorsburg home. He said the same in his deposition.
Yet answers to plaintiffs' interrogatories from the Johnsons said pythons and an anaconda had been kept on their property in 2020 and 2023.
Should it be determined Greg had snakes in the house, the Johnsons can avoid liability by showing they never knew of that dangerous condition.
"(T)here are instances in which a third party's intervening act can interrupt the causal chain such that liability cannot be imposed on a property owner," Mehalchick wrote.
