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An Emmy award-winning American actress has launched a $5 million lawsuit for the trauma that she says she suffered after a dog bit her in the face during a love scene on an Ottawa movie set.
Adrienne Frantz, 39, a celebrated U.S. soap opera star, was suddenly attacked by the dog as she filmed a scene with Canadian actor John Cor on the set of the movie, The Perfect Girlfriend, in November 2014.
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In an interview Tuesday, Frantz’s Vancouver-based lawyer, Robyn Wishart, described the allegation at the heart of the lawsuit: “She was filming the love scene and was in a passionate embrace with the male lead when the dog ran up the stairs and knocked the male lead off of Ms. Frantz and then bit her in the face.”
The dog, a Boston terrier named Bentley, had a role in the film but was not supposed to play any part in the scene, Wishart told the Citizen.
At the time of the incident, Frantz was three months pregnant, she said, and ultimately decided to forego a tetanus shot in order to protect her unborn baby.
Unfortunately, Frantz suffered a miscarriage less than two weeks after the dog bite, Wishart said, and endured other physical and emotional fallout, including post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression and Graves’ disease, a thyroid-related condition that can sometimes be triggered by stressful events.
Frantz’s damages suit contends that the Ontario-based film production company, NB Thrilling Films 4 Inc., was negligent in its handling of the dog, Bentley, and failed to keep her safe on the Ottawa set.
Wishart said that Bentley was not a trained animal actor, but rather a family pet owned by the film’s Ottawa-based make-up artist.
In a statement of defence, the production company, NB Films, concedes that a dog “incident” took place, but it maintains that it did not result in any serious or permanent injuries to Frantz.
Pasquale Santini, a lawyer for the production company, said in an affidavit that he has viewed recent pictures of Frantz on the internet that show she has “no scarring or skin imperfections of any kind” on her right cheek.
What’s more, Santini contends, Frantz “ought to have known that dogs can be unpredictable and that there was a risk associated with such unpredictability.” By agreeing to act in a film with a dog, he argues, she accepted those risks.
The incident took place on a set location at 512 Island Park Drive, near Iona Street, in Westboro.
The movie, released in July 2016, was filmed entirely in Ottawa for the Lifetime cable TV channel.
Frantz was the top-billed star of the film. She played the role of Simone Matthews, a businesswoman who pursues a romance with a co-worker while simultaneously trying to destroy his existing relationship by impersonating his girlfriend online.
In the movie, Matthews adopts a dog, Bentley, in an effort to soften her image and appeal to Brandon Moore, the handsome young executive played by Cor.
Frantz rose to fame in the late 1990s on the daytime soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. In 2001, she won the Daytime Emmy award in the outstanding young actress category for her portrayal of Amber Moore, a complicated and vulnerable villain. She received two other Daytime Emmy award nominations, and later starred in The Young and the Restless.
Frantz married actor Scott Bailey, another soap opera star, in November 2011. The couple celebrated the birth of their first child, Amélie Irene Bailey, in December 2015.
According to Wishart, Frantz did not go to the hospital after she was bitten by Bentley on Nov. 7, 2014. Instead, Wishart said, she was taken to a doctor who advised her to get a tetanus shot and also to consider the rabies vaccines since Bentley had recently been bitten in a local dog park and was under investigation for the dangerous viral disease.
Frantz did not require stitches for her wound and completed filming of the movie before returning home to Studio City, Calif. where she found out about her miscarriage.
“She wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a dog on set, or to choose between a tetanus shot and her baby, and what we say is that it triggered something called Graves’ disease, a thyroid condition that can be caused by a trauma,” said Wishart.
All of it made it difficult for Frantz to work and her lucrative acting career suffered for a time as a result, Wishart said.
“This is not a regular dog bite case: It’s a complicated story,” she said.
Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland recently ruled on a motion in the case brought by the defendants, NB Films. Hackland said that Frantz could rely on a $100,000 insurance policy for any potential cost award made against her if her lawsuit fails.
Allegations made in the lawsuit have yet to be tested in court.
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