Understanding Your Rights After a Dog Bite Injury

Check out our latest YouTube video where dog bite injury lawyers, Colton Leung and Andrew Iacobelli, sit down to discuss your rights following a dog bite injury.  Below is a summary of the video contents, or you can view it now above. 

Andrew: Today we're going to talk about what your rights and remedies are if you are unfortunately injured by a dog. We all love dogs. Lots of us in the office here have dogs and most dog owners are really responsible and dogs are great pets but occasionally dogs do cause some harm, injury or loss. 

Understanding Strict Liability in Dog Bite Cases
Colton: Generally speaking in a lot of jurisdictions there's something known as strict liability which essentially means that the individual who was bitten by a dog, they don't have to prove that the owner was negligent in handling the dog, but instead it is deemed that the owner is at fault to begin with.
Andrew: Yeah, and that's really important for victims. Ordinarily in a personal injury matter, the injured party has to prove that there was a duty, that the duty was breached, and that that breach resulted in some harm, injury, or loss. 
Strict liability, which applies to certain circumstances including dog bites, like you mentioned, really helps the victim sort of streamline the process and really focus on damages. But, of course, you need to know the owner of the dog and unlike cars and vehicles that are registered and there are plates and licenses and all this stuff that makes it easy for your lawyers to find out who the owner of the car that hit you is. In dog bites, one of the challenges that we often have is, who owned the dog?

Immediate Steps After a Dog Bite
Andrew: Why don't you talk about some of the things that the victim of a dog bite should do immediately to help them bring a claim for their losses or their injuries. 
Colton: Of course, so it's very important to get name, contact details, address if you're able to, and also to notify the authorities, for example, animal control, so that they can do investigations or to document who the dog owner is to make sure that all its vaccines are up to date, and to also document who's responsible for taking care of the dog.

Importance of Vaccination Records in Dog Bite Accidents
Andrew: You brought up a good point with the vaccines. So it's important to notify authorities not only to preserve your right to potentially bring a claim, but also rabies is the big one. And even though rabies is extremely rare, the authorities, the first thing they would kind of want to know is the veterinary records.
We've had cases, unfortunately, where the person who owned the dog has left the scene. Unfortunately, if they're unable to locate the dog and obtain the vaccination records from the veterinarian, like in this case, this poor individual was forced to undergo treatment for rabies just to protect them in the event that that dog wasn't vaccinated.
So, it's basically adding insult to injury. Someone who's already been bitten by a dog or attacked by a dog. And now on top of that, they have to undergo treatment that maybe, probably wouldn't be necessary if they had access to proof that this dog was vaccinated against rabies. 

Insurance and Liability when a Dog Attacks
Andrew: Now, who pays? Like, okay, so in a car, and I'm just always comparing it to cars, because I think most people are familiar with what happens at a car accident.
We all know motor vehicles by and large are supposed to be insured. Who pays the damages or the losses when a dog attacks someone? 

Colton: So the dog owner's homeowner's insurance or their tenant insurance, uh, if they're a tenant would generally cover incidents where their dog has bitten another individual. 
Andrew: So that's why it's also important to identify who the owner is and their address because ultimately probably would proceed against the homeowner's insurance policy. Generally it doesn't matter if it happened on their property. 
Colton: As long as they had control of the dog at that time, their homeowner's insurance should respond to it. 

Common Dog Bite Injuries
Andrew: What kind of injuries…
Colton: Are typical dog bites? Well, again, it can range. It can be a little scratch on your arm or your leg, deeper lacerations, teeth puncture holes, requiring stitches. There's instances when skin grafting is required as well if, you know, a chunk of skin is missing unfortunately. And of course, the worst case scenario is someone unfortunately passes away because they've been mauled to death by a dog. 
Other injuries that we typically see include psychological injuries such as Which is, you know, anxiety, depression, more so anxiety and PTSD. So it's very important to not only let your medical professionals know your physical injuries, but you should also voice your concerns in terms of your psychological injuries as well as they're not visible and they're not easily documented unless you voice your concerns to your medical professional.

Dog Breeds and Bite Incidents
Colton: So Andrew, what kind of dog breeds do you usually see in dog bite incidents? 
Andrew: I don't think it's so much a specific breed. Certainly more serious injuries come from larger breed dogs when they attack just because they're more physically powerful and stronger and can inflict greater injury typically. We see a lot of injuries from Just about all breeds, but I think frequently we see injuries from German Shepherds and Huskies.
Colton: We also get a lot of cases where it's smaller breeds that have, you know, bitten our client. 

Responsible Dog Ownership and Preventing Dog Bite Injuries
Andrew: Yeah, there are certain breeds that probably require greater training and handling. Our experience helping people who have been injured because of dog bites also reminds us you have to be a responsible dog owner. If you, if you, you know, if you have a larger, stronger breed, you should work with that dog. That dog requires training and obedience and socialization because I think most dog bites from what we see could be avoided if the owner had more experience in handling that dog or avoided certain situations where they knew the dog was vulnerable. 

Sometimes we find out after, once we were involved in the case, it wasn't the first time that it exhibited aggression in a certain setting and the person ignored it. It's not fair to the person that was hurt because they never warned them. Sometimes you see people get hurt in social settings, kids getting hurt at birthday parties or play dates. The owners of the dog knew that maybe this dog wasn't the best around kids but kind of ignored it.

It's really, um, a reminder to be a responsible owner. As much as you love your pet, be responsible. Don't put other people at risk unnecessarily. 

Victim's Role and Precautions
Andrew: What about the victim themselves? Because the dog owners will often blame the victim. What do you have to say about that? Where the dog owner is, is blaming the victim for, you know, maybe approaching the dog, petting the dog. Getting their face in the dog's face, things like this, which are some of the things that we commonly hear. 
Colton: So, I think it's very important for individuals before they even, you know, touch the dog or approach the dog to perhaps ask for consent from the dog owners because you don't know whether or not a dog is friendly to begin with, and if you approach the owner and they allow you to, chances are the owners know that their dog is well behaved and wouldn't bite.

Andrew: But also in terms of that scenario, it's also important for the victim to know that because most dog bite cases are strict liability, you know, you petting the dog or you maybe getting too close to the dog without permission isn't going to insulate the owner from liability, meaning you'll still have a viable cause of action. You'll still have a viable claim.

But just to protect yourself, like you said, if it's not your dog, give the dog its space. Don't approach it without the owners and maybe getting the owner to supervise the dog while you pet it. 

How Much is a Dog Bite Case Worth?
Andrew: Another common question we get from clients is how much is a dog bite case worth?
And like any personal injury case, it's going to be very fact specific. The severity of the injury is going to play into it. Whether or not there's scarring, permanent disfigurement, where it is. Obviously a scar to someone's face would probably attract greater value than a scar somewhere that's going to be covered like the upper thigh.

And then the impact on the person's life. So is it a permanent disfigurement? Is there any kind of permanent impairment? The pain and suffering the person has gone through? The type of healthcare that was necessary because of the incident? All comes into play. 

To answer that question, what's a dog bite worth? It could be worth anywhere from a really modest amount of money if it's a very insignificant modest injury to, to six figures to obviously, you know, if it's more serious even beyond that. 
Colton: And it's usually a relatively short period of time. Um, insurance companies, I think out of all the personal injury cases that we have, I think assuming that there is an insurance company responding to, uh, dog bites are the fastest. personal injury cases that we resolve. 

Andrew: Yeah, I agree. I think so too. 

Legal and Government Actions
Colton: So many people are concerned with, uh, reporting a dog bite incident, uh, and, uh, whether or not the dog itself would be put down. 

Andrew: A dog bite liability case is a civil case, so the only remedy your lawyer can really obtain for you in the context of a dog bite is money damages for your harms and losses. Money. 

There may be government action. Based on regulation, government action, depending on the nature and the severity of the injury. There could be other kinds of prosecution that comes out of a serious dog bite. By and large, in our experience, most dog bite cases don't result in any real consequence to the dog. Certainly not from civil litigation. If there is, it's because it's a serious injury and that's government prosecution for the public safety. 

Colton: What we typically see is maybe a fine to the dog owner and that's pretty much it, so. 
Andrew: Yeah, it's rare circumstances where the dog is put down. 
Colton: You know, it's important to get a lawyer, um, early on in terms of a potential dog bite case because a lawyer can try to take steps to ascertain, A, whether or not there's adequate insurance responding and B, try to guide you in the correct path so that you can preserve your claim, to guide you in the right direction, to seek medical attention and to assist you along the process of the case.

Have Questions? Contact Us Today!
Colton: So if you have any questions in relation to dog bite cases please don't hesitate to reach out to both Andrew and I, we're more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. Our contact details are listed in the show notes below.

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