Photo by Maryland Route 5

When a Maryland Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that pitbulls are “inherently dangerous,” it didn’t limit the heightened standard of liability to owners alone—landlords who rented to pitbull owners could also face lawsuits if an attack occurred.

As such, landlords throughout the state shouldn’t be blamed for taking precautions and telling tenants that pitbulls are a no-no. But for one Baltimore man, that his landlord said exactly that is leaving him with a stark choice: get rid of the dog or face homelessness.

The Baltimore Sun reported yesterday that Joseph Weigel, a resident of the low-income Armistead Gardens housing development in east Baltimore, is suing over the development’s decision to disallow pitbulls in its apartments. In the lawsuit, Weigel claims that the order—which was spurred by the court’s decision—would leave him without a dog or without a home:

Weigel’s suit argues that in the ruling, the appeals court unconstitutionally overrode the property rights of people like Weigel by making them choose between their homes and their pets.

Charles H. Edwards, Weigel’s attorney, said that if a restraining order is not issued, Weigel and his dog will be homeless before the end of September. While Weigel is the only resident of the development named in the suit, Edwards said it could apply to as many as 500 dog owners who live there.

“These people are faced with a very hard choice — homelessness or euthanization of their dogs,” Edwards said.

Animal rights activists have been pushing the Maryland General Assembly to act on the court’s ruling, but a special session in August focused only on expanding gambling in the state. (The court recently clarified that the ruling only applied to pure-bred pitbulls, but the Humane Society claims that those are hard to identify.) As such, a legislative resolution may not come to pass until 2013.