Imagine this, you are just taking a walk on the sidewalk and a dog comes and bites your leg. You look for the owner and you see them just standing on their porch, not doing anything to prevent their dog from biting you. What can you do? Well depending on how bad the injury is, you can actually sue the owner of the dog for personal injury as our Dallas TX dog bite lawyer can explain.
Is Suing Someone For Their Dog Biting You A Real Thing?
Yes! There are a lot more dog bite cases than you think. For example, just recently in 2023,Stacy Finelli got bitten by a neighbor’s dog who had a history of aggression. After the attack, Stacy had to endure many surgeries and many hours of physical therapy to heal. Stacy pursued legal action against the owners of the dog. Satcy won the lawsuit and won 5.3 million dollars. Unfortunately, Stacy was still severely injured and would have to sustain some of her injuries for the rest of her life. Now, even if your injury isn’t as severe, you can still pursue legal action against the owner if need be as our attorneys who have been rated in the Top 100 National Trial Lawyers can explain.
What Would I Sue Them For?
If you were to get bitten by someone’s dog and felt the need to sue, you would sue the owners of that dog on the basis of personal injury.
What Is Personal Injury?
Personal Injury is a tort that is physical, mental, or property injury that is a result of another party’s negligence. There are three instances in which a personal injury claim should be brought. First, negligence. Negligence is when someone fails to behave on the duty of care that they have in the situation. In Stacy Finelli’s case, the defense tried to argue that they were not to be liable because they did not know that the dog would attack, even though they did know that the dog had violent tendencies. The judge however, ruled that the defense would be liable because they were present at the time of the attack, proving that they were negligent and did not fulfill their duty of care. Second, strict liability. Cornell Law says that strict liability holds someone liable for an action regardless of their state of mind when the action was committed. Lastly intentional wrongs result from an intentional act. Examples of this are battery, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional
distress. If the plaintiff wins their claim under any of these criteria, they will be awarded damages. Damages will help pay for any expenses that are a result of the injury sustained by the defense.
How Does This Work?
Generally for dog bites, personal injury claims come with negligence. For example, as we said in the beginning, you were just walking on the street and your neighbor’s dog comes and bites you in the leg, leaving you severely injured. Now imagine that the owner isn’t watching his dog, and imagine that the dog is a breed that is known to be hostile. This would all be grounds for negligence on his part because he knew that the dog was hostile, and still did nothing to fulfill his duty of care to protect others from his dog. Therefore, you could sue the owner on the basis of negligence for personal injury.
Personal injury claims can account for many instances. It is a very broad tort and lawsuits on the basis for personal injury are very common. Contact the Brandy Austin Law Firm to work with our lawyers that have been rated as top attorneys by Fort Worth Magazine.
