The lawsuit took nine years to unfold. It would turn on the question of whether Adrienne Frantz was eligible for Ontario workers’ compensation benefits.
An American soap opera star who was attacked by a dog during a love scene on an Ottawa movie set has had her $5-million personal damages lawsuit tossed out of court.
Emmy-award winning actress Adrienne Frantz said she experienced post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression after being bitten in the face by a Boston terrier on the set of the movie, The Perfect Girlfriend, in November 2014.
In a recent decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Calum MacLeod ordered Frantz to pay $62,000 in costs for a case that he said should not have neared trial.
According to court documents, Frantz, now 46, was suddenly attacked by a dog as she filmed a love scene with her leading man, Canadian actor John Cor. While the actors were in a passionate embrace, the suit alleged, the dog bolted into the scene, jumped on the couch, and bit her in the face.
The dog, named Bentley, had a minor role in the movie, but was not supposed to play any part in the scene.
Frantz launched a damages suit alleging that the Ontario-based film production company, NB Thrilling Films 4 Inc., failed to keep her safe and was negligent in its handling of Bentley.
The suit alleged Bentley was not a trained animal actor, but rather the family pet of a local makeup artist.
In a statement of defence, the production company argued the dog incident did not result in any serious or permanent injuries to Frantz. What’s more, the company suggested the lawsuit was barred by Ontario’s workplace safety law since everyone on set, including the actors, was covered by optional Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) coverage purchased by the firm.
Evening Update
The lawsuit took nine years to unfold. It would ultimately turn on the question of whether Frantz was eligible for Ontario workers’ compensation benefits.
With some limited exceptions, workers who are eligible for compensation benefits have no right to sue employers or company officials for workplace accidents.
The Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal determines if workplace law applies in any given case. Its decisions cannot be appealed.
The tribunal held a two-day hearing on the Frantz case in March 2024, during which a video of the dog attack was played.
Tribunal vice-chair E.J. Smith said it showed Frantz and her co-star “lying together in a semi-prone position on a couch, when the dog unexpectedly rushed to the couple, jumped up on Ms. Frantz, and bit her on the face.”
Photographs entered as exhibits showed the bite resulted in teeth marks that broke the skin, along with some light bruising.
Frantz’s lawyer, Robyn Wishart, argued the actor was an independent operator on loan from her management company and not an Ontario worker. Alternatively, Wishart said, the dog’s involvement in the scene constituted a film stunt, something exempted from workers’ compensation coverage.
But Smith rejected both arguments, deemed Frantz a worker under Ontario law and found she was covered by WSIB insurance.
The ruling meant Frantz’s lawsuit could not proceed even though document production, discovery examinations and mediation had already taken place.
In ordering a cost award in the case, MacLeod criticized both parties for allowing the case to move forward without first obtaining a ruling from the workplace insurance tribunal.
After the dog bite, Frantz went to a doctor who advised her to get a tetanus shot. At the time of the incident, Frantz was three months pregnant, and she ultimately decided to forgo a tetanus shot in order to protect her unborn baby.
Frantz did not require stitches. She completed filming of the movie before returning days later to her home in Studio City, Calif.
Frantz suffered a miscarriage less there than two weeks after the incident, according to her lawyer, and endured other physical and emotional fallout, including Graves’ disease, a thyroid-related condition that can sometimes be triggered by stressful events.
Frantz was the top-billed star of The Perfect Girlfriend. She played the role of Simone Matthews, a businesswoman who pursued an affair with a co-worker while trying to destroy his existing relationship by impersonating his girlfriend online. In the movie, Matthews adopted a dog, Bentley, in an effort to soften her image.
The dog bite took place on a set location on Island Park Drive in Westboro. The movie was filmed entirely in Ottawa for Lifetime, a cable TV channel.
Frantz rose to fame in Hollywood 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 younger actress category for her portrayal of Amber Moore, a complicated villain. She received two other Daytime Emmy Award nominations and later starred in The Young and the Restless.
Frantz is married to actor Scott Bailey, another soap opera star. They have three children.
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