Harlow County
Dog Bite Lawyer.
In many states the dog bite law says any cost to the victim for medical treatment resulting from an attacking or biting dog must be paid fully by the owner or keeper of the dog, and everything beyond that turns on two things: how bad the wound was, and what the dog had done before.
Who Pays If The Dog Belongs To A Friend?
This is the question that stops most of these calls before they start, and it is worth saying plainly.
The dog usually belongs to somebody the person knows. A neighbor, a relative, a friend's partner, the family whose house the children play at. Nobody wants to put a person they like in front of a lawyer, so the bite gets cleaned up, the wound gets a dressing, and the whole thing is left alone until a scar turns out to be permanent or a hospital bill arrives.
In practice a claim like this is normally made against the insurance on the home where the dog lives rather than against the person's savings, and that is a different conversation from the one people are dreading. Whether a particular policy covers it, and up to what limit, depends on the policy, and the only way to know is to ask for it. That is a question the office can ask on your behalf without anybody being sued.
What the dog bite law does say, in terms, is that any cost to the victim for medical treatment resulting from an attacking or biting dog must be paid fully by the owner or keeper of the dog, and that the state is not liable for those costs. That sentence exists precisely because the alternative is a person with stitches paying for a dog they did not own.
What Should I Do After A Bite?
Six things, in the order they matter. The first three are about health and the rest are about the record that will still exist in a year.
- Get the wound cleaned and treated the same day, and tell the clinician it was a dog
- Ask who the dog belongs to and where it lives, and write it down before you leave
- Report it, so the dog is confined and isolated the way the statute requires
- Photograph the wound the day it happened and again as it heals, with a date on each
- Ask the owner whether the dog has bitten anyone before, and write down the answer
- Keep every discharge sheet, prescription and appointment letter in one place
Do I Have To Report The Bite, And To Whom?
The statute names the people who confine a dog that has bitten, which in practice is the list of who to report to. Each of them creates a record that exists whether or not there is ever a claim.
A State dog warden
Department of AgricultureA dog that bites or attacks a human being is to be immediately confined in an approved enclosure, and dogs detained that way must be isolated for a minimum of ten days to determine the medical results of the confinement.
An animal control officer or a police officer
Or a designated employee of the Department of HealthThe dog may be held in an approved kennel, at the owner's property, or somewhere else the investigating officer approves. The investigating officer is also responsible for telling the bite victim the medical results of the confinement.
The owner or the keeper
Whoever the dog actually lives withAny costs incurred in detaining and isolating the dog fall on the offending dog's owner or keeper or both, and the medical treatment cost provision sits in the same section.
If the bite happened in a rental
A landlord, a management company, a housing authorityWho was responsible for the gate, the fence and the common ground is a premises question as much as a dog question, and it is argued the same way a fall is.
How Are Scarring Claims Handled?
Do not settle earlyA scar is not finished when the stitches come out. Revision surgery, laser treatment and the final appearance of a facial or hand scar can be a year or more away, and the dog bite law's own definition of a severe injury turns on broken bones or disfiguring lacerations requiring multiple sutures or cosmetic surgery. An offer made while a wound is still pink is an offer made before anybody knows the answer.
How Long Do I Have?
Bites happen to children more often than to adults, and the deadline works differently for them.
Two years
Minority is not counted
Ten days minimum
Six months notice
- Owner responsibilitySome states make an owner answerable for a bite on the first occasion; others ask whether the owner knew the dog was likely to bite.
- Bite reportingMany states require a bite to be reported to the local health or animal control authority, which starts an official record.
- Quarantine after a biteA dog that bites is often quarantined for a set period so it can be watched for signs of illness.
- Dog law definitionsState dog laws define terms such as owner, keeper and dangerous dog, and the definitions decide who a claim runs against.
- Dangerous dog rulesA dog already declared dangerous usually comes with extra duties for the owner, and a bite by that dog is treated more strictly.
- Confinement rulesMany states and towns require a dog to be confined, leashed or under reasonable control off the owner's property.
- Deadlines, and minorsMost injury lawsuits have to be started within a set number of years, often two, and in many states a child's own claim waits until adulthood.
Does the owner have to have known the dog was dangerous?
Not for the medical treatment costs. That provision of the dog bite law is written as an obligation on the owner or keeper and does not wait for an argument about what they knew.
The dog's history matters for everything after that. The statute's dangerous dog provisions turn on whether a dog inflicted severe injury without provocation, attacked without provocation, or has a history of attacking without provocation, and those are the same facts a claim is argued on.
Tell us what the dog had done beforeWhat if the dog had never bitten anyone before?
It is still worth asking. A first bite still produces a medical record, a confinement and an investigating officer, and the medical cost provision does not ask how many times it has happened.
What a first bite usually changes is the size and shape of the rest of the claim, not whether there is one.
Plain answers on deadlines and first callsThe owner says they will pay. Should I wait?
Get it in writing, and do not let the two years run while you are waiting. In most states an injury lawsuit has to be started within a set time, often two years, and a promise is not a filing.
If the person bitten is a child, the period of minority is not counted as part of that time, which is a different and much longer picture.
Ask what your deadline actually isMy child was bitten at someone else's house. Will this cause a fight?
Usually less of one than people expect. The claim is normally made against the insurance on the home rather than against the household, and the insurer takes over the conversation from there.
Someone from the office will come to you at home rather than asking you to bring a child who is still upset into an office.
Ask us to come to youAre dog bites the only kind of animal case you take?
No. What happened on somebody else's property, whether it was a dog, a gate, a stair or a surface, is looked at the same way: who controlled it, what they knew, and what record exists.
The injury index lists the case types this firm takes on, keyed to what happened rather than to legal category names.
The injury cases this firm takes on