If you have been seriously injured in a Beach Cities Dog Attack, please call us right now for your free, confidential consultation with an experienced Beach Cities Animal Attack attorney.
The first things to do after being attacked
It is very important identify the animal that attacked you, mainly because if it is a stray and you cannot identify it, you are dealing with the potential of having to undergo treatment for rabies, which can be unpleasant.
Also, if you were attacked by a dog or any wild animal being kept by somebody, you most likely are qualified to receive compensation by the dog’s owner, and you may genuinely need that compensation to cover your medical bills, reimburse you for lost revenue, cover plastic surgery in the future, as well as make it easier to rise above the discomfort and suffering from your injuries.
After that, get medical help. You will undoubtedly be in very good company, because 1,000 Americans arrive in emergency rooms every single day of the entire year as a result of dog attacks alone! If you are wounded around the face, insist upon treatment by a plastic surgeon because emergency room doctors are excellent at keeping men and women alive but not necessarily one of the best at making stitches and injuries look good.
After that, you’ll want to keep to the instructions of the physician and take every one of the prescriptions which are prescribed (with the exception of the painkillers, which usually are usually your discretion).
You may additionally be required to remain out of the sunlight, use sunscreen, use scar reduction lotion, change bandages, go in for follow up treatment, go in for removing stitches, massage the healing zones, etc. If that’s the case, do it!
The decision as to whether you will need rabies shots needs to be left to your physician. Shots are not always needed, because rabies may not be within your geographic area. Do not be alarmed if your physician informs you that you do not need this painful treatment.
If the dog owner is covered by insurance, you might get a call from an insurance company representative.
Make sure you ask him or her for the subsequent information:
Do not do any of the following:
Measures to protect your rights
A dog attack victim needs to do the following things to preserve his or her rights:
You also should revisit the scene of the incident a couple of times at the same time at which the incident happened, because individuals often have a habit of visiting the same spots as part of their daily regimen.
As noticeable as the details and wounds may be to you, they will not likely be obvious to an insurance adjuster sitting at a desk in an office building a couple weeks or months following your attack.
Furthermore, doctors are interested in treating you than proving the type and magnitude of your injuries to an insurer, so the proper paperwork must be requested from them at the appropriate times.
Your lawyer will acquire the necessary facts and monitor your treatment, so that the insurance adjuster will fully grasp exactly what happened, and will ensure that you get an adequate sum of money, if possible.
Because “dog court” procedures may unintentionally compromise the victim’s rights, she should not speak with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, gains the department’s commitment as to which laws and processes they will be following, and is pleased that the concerns addressed below will be solved fairly.
If the victim receives a subpoena, her testimony is essential, making it even more significant to instantly speak with a lawyer — because a subpoena must be obeyed, to its letter.
The victim must never do the following:
Do not write to, or make a report for, any insurance company, dog owner, or property manager or other property owner.
The dog attack victim’s right to a lawyer
A dog attack victim may have numerous distinct kinds of damages and losses, from medical charges and psychological destruction, to loss of the possibility to gain income in the future because of disfigurement.
A victim may be eligible to get back these losses from another individual and that individual’s insurance company, provided that the victim provides the necessary evidence, first to the insurance company and then possibly in a court of law.
There are two sets of laws the victim must adhere to, specifically those spelling out who is liable for the injuries and losses, and those imposing tough guidelines of proof and process to identify that liability.
Parents have special criteria when their kids are hurt.
A wounded individual and his or her family are not emotionally ready of vigorously enforcing their rights. The most critical task they confront is ensuring that the victim heals. In death cases, the family members grieve; it is not going to gather evidence and put together legal briefs.
In cases short of death, the victim and his or her family need to be hopeful, so the tendency is to lessen the hurting, even ignore it as much as possible.
Nevertheless, it is there, and it may remain there for quite a long time — forever, if wounds turn into ugly scars. Therefore, a vigorous advocate is a necessity.
An attorney with experience in defending persons with these types of injuries brings value to your claim. He or she has researched the effects of dog bite injuries, how to accumulate the proof essential to completely prove not only what took place in the past but also what the long term consequences will be, the methods and processes of insurance agencies when handling critical instances like these, and how to properly examine these cases to ensure that the victims get exactly what they deserve.
A lawyer with expertise has the talent to objectively look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of a lawsuit. Furthermore, an attorney is the only person who can turn a claim into a lawsuit if you are not being taken care of fairly. Without the threat of a lawsuit, you are at the mercy of the insurance carrier.
Furthermore, the treatments often followed by animal control departments in “dog court” hearings may accidentally endanger the victim’s rights.
A victim and her relatives consequently should not talk with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, acquires the department’s dedication as to which laws and steps they will be following, and is content that the issues dealt with in another place in Dog Bite Law will be fixed fairly.
The challenges of not retaining an attorney
If you are working with the insurance firm without an attorney, then, as seriously as you are taking your injuries, the insurance carrier isn’t — there is no doubt of that.
People with related injuries have retained attorneys to present their claims to that same insurance company. One factor that all those people have in common is a perspective of seriousness about what happened to them, and a driving wish to ensure they are treated fairly.
The insurance firm pays the suitable amount to those individuals, but not the ones who don’t take the preliminary step of protecting their legal rights by maintaining a lawyer.
The person at the insurance company that you are interacting with (called the “adjuster”) might well seem truthful and sympathetic — a very, excellent person, a nurturing person.
However, he or she must report to other people you will never talk to: a supervisor, a claims examiner, a regional manager, and last but not least the corporate office.
The adjuster is paid an income and has a family. He or she wants to continue working for that organization, and maybe get a raise and a promotion. None of that will be risked for you.
Even if the adjuster hopes to help you, because of some connection which you feel has developed among the both of you, you will not always be dealt with fairly by the supervisor, claims examiner, regional manager, and corporate office. They are not familiar with you. To them, you are nothing at all but a person without a lawyer.
You are not dealing with the adjuster, you are dealing with a faceless company, and to that firm you are nothing but a file, a legal responsibility, someone that needs money which normally would be dispersed to the shareholders as profit.
If you do not retain an attorney, you’re on your own, against all those people at the insurance company, and all of its attorneys. When was the last time that you heard a happy ending to that story?
The expenses of making a lawsuit are generally relatively small, compared to the amount of money that will be received. In a normal lawsuit, they may come to between $1000 and $2000. However, cases which are being prepared for trial end up being very expensive — tens of thousands of dollars.
Fortunately only 2% of lawsuits actually go to trial, so there is no major chance of the expenses “consuming up” the recovery.
It needs to be noted that the contingency fee system is uniquely American and that it has been under attack in recent years. Because it enables ordinary citizens to obtain legal help, the corporate world — insurance providers and other industries — have been attempting to pass laws to abolish or cripple it.
These laws take many diverse forms, such as an arbitrary limit on the quantity that a victim’s lawyer may charge. Note that only the victim’s attorney would be subject to any constraint, while the insurance industry’s attorneys would carry on to not only charge their usual hourly rates but also rely upon the substantial monetary coffers of their prosperous customers.
The tort program exists for the advantage of ordinary individuals rather than the interests of the business world, and therefore the system and its key players (the victims and their lawyers) constantly experience attacks and regularly must fight for their rights.