Can you sue someone for hitting a puppy with a truck and killing it in front of an 11 year old kid

Okay I just got back from getting my haircut when I was talking to my mom about something and this kid was playing with his dog and a truck went driving down the street without his lights on and hit the puppy right in front of the kid who was no more than 5 feet away from the puppy.the truck then slowed down, looked back and then sped away, so I was wondering if you could sue someone for doing this cuz like I said the kid was only 11 years old.

FYI the dog wasn't a little chihuaha, it was more like a hound dog or labrador size dog.

You can sue for anything you want..but that doesn't mean you'd win.

It doesn't matter how old the witness was. In this case, about the only way the driver could be held accountable would be if he had swerved out of his normal traffic path to hit the dog intentionally, if it were over to the side of the road instead of actually IN the road. The only thing that might change that in this case was that the driver didn't have his lights on.but that's not even cut-and-dry.

As sad as it was for the child, the dog should simply should not have been in the road..even if only 5 feet away. We have leash laws for a reason. Dogs in the road present a very real danger for human life. Accidents with human injury can happen when people hit animals, as well as when they swerve (into oncoming traffic, etc.) in order to avoid hitting them.

Had the driver hit the child and left the scene, he could be arrested and prosecuted for a crime..and there would be a good civil case against him, too.