Postal worker wins $1 million from Mayfield in dog attack

If they had a contest for the 'ultimate loser,' Mayfield would win it hands down.

On Wednesday, a Forsyth County judge ordered former NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield to pay $1 million to a Catawba [NC] postal carrier attacked last year by Mayfield's five pitbulls. This is the latest salvo against Mayfield, whose home was auctioned off for failing to pay about $3 million he owed on the property. He also faces drug-possession, larceny and stolen goods charges in three North Carolina counties and was suspended from NASCAR in 2009 for testing positive for methamphetamine.

Judge William Z. Wood of Forsyth Superior Court awarded Mary E. Bolton $1 million. Bolton, who lives in Catawba County, filed a lawsuit against Mayfield and his wife, Shana Mayfield, in June in Forsyth Superior Court. The suit was filed in Forsyth because Bolton's attorney, Marc Madonia, is based in Winston-Salem, NC. Bolton alleged that the Mayfields were negligent in allowing the dogs, pitbull/Labrador mixes, to run loose on their property in Catawba County.

She was delivering mail the morning of April 21, 2011, and had a package too large for the mailbox outside the Mayfields' gate. She drove through the gate, past "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dogs" signs, to deliver the package and encountered the dogs that attacked her. Mayfield heard the commotion, shouted at the dogs to scatter them and carried Bolton into the house. He and his wife called 911, and Bolton was taken to Catawba Medical Center for treatment. Animal control confiscated the dogs from Mayfield, but no criminal charges were filed against him. The dogs were later euthanized. Bolton suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has nerve damage, Madonia said.(more at the Morganton News Herald