If you have been injured in a Beverly Hills Animal Bite, please call us today for a complimentary, confidential assessment with a knowledgeable Beverly Hills Animal Bite lawyer.
The initial things to do after being attacked
It is important to identify the dog that attacked you, because if it is a stray and you cannot identify it, you are facing the possibility of needing to submit to treatment for rabies, which can be painful.
Also, if you were attacked by a dog or any wild animal being kept by someone, you most likely are eligible to receive compensation from the dog’s owner, and you also may possibly genuinely need that compensation to pay for your medical charges, reimburse you for lost revenue, pay for plastic surgery at some point, and make it easier to overcome the discomfort and being affected by your injuries.
After that, get medical assistance. You will undoubtedly be in very good company, because 1,000 Americans arrive in emergency rooms every single day of the entire year because of animal bites alone! If you are injured around the face, insist upon treatment by a cosmetic surgeon because emergency room doctors are great at keeping individuals alive but not necessarily one of the best at making stitches and wounds look good.
After that, make sure to follow the guidelines from the doctor and take every one of the medications which are prescribed (aside from the painkillers, which often are at your discretion).
You may additionally be directed to stay out of the sun, use sun block, use scar tissue reduction lotion, change bandages, go in for follow up treatment, report for removal of stitches, massage the healing regions, etc. If so, do it!
The final decision as to whether or not you will need rabies shots needs to be left to your doctor. Shots are not always needed, because rabies may not be within your geographic location. Do not be frightened if your doctor informs you that you do not need to have this painful treatment.
If the dog owner is covered by insurance, you may get a phone call from an insurance company representative.
Make sure you question him or her for the subsequent information:
Do not do any of the following:
Ways to protect your rights
A dog attack victim needs to do the subsequent things to protect his or her rights:
You also should revisit the scene of the accident several times at the same time when the incident happened, because individuals may have a habit of visiting the same places as part of their daily regimen.
As obvious as the information and injuries might be to you, they will not likely be noticeable to an insurance adjuster sitting at a desk in an office building a few weeks or months following the attack.
Furthermore, doctors are interested in healing you than proving the nature and magnitude of your injuries to an insurance provider, so the proper documentation needs to be asked for from them at the proper times.
Your lawyer will obtain the essential proof and monitor your treatment, so that the insurance adjuster will comprehend exactly what took place, and will provide you with an adequate sum of money, when possible.
Because “dog court” procedures may accidentally compromise the victim’s rights, she should not communicate with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, gets the department’s commitment as to which laws and methods they will be following, and is fulfilled that the problems addressed below will be resolved fairly.
If the victim obtains a subpoena, her testimony is essential, making it even more important to instantly seek the advice of with an attorney — because a subpoena must be followed, to its letter.
The victim must in no way do the following:
However, sign absolutely nothing offered by any insurance company, the owner of the dog, or the property manager or other owner of the property where the attack took place. Do not write to, or make a report for, any insurance company, dog owner, or property manager or other property owner.
The dog bite victim’s right to a lawyer
A dog attack victim may have many various kinds of damages and losses, from medical charges and mental injury, to loss of the possibility to earn income in the future because of disfigurement.
A victim may be entitled to get back these losses from another person and that person’s insurance company, provided that the victim presents the required evidence, first to the insurance company and then possibly in a court of law.
There are two sets of laws the victim must stick to, specifically those spelling out who is accountable for the injuries and losses, and those imposing rigid rules of evidence and process to set up that liability.
Parents have particular considerations whenever their children are harmed.
An injured person and his or her family are not mentally equipped of intensely enforcing their privileges. The most crucial task they face is ensuring that the victim heals. In death cases, the loved ones grieve; it doesn’t collect data and prepare legal briefs.
In cases short of death, the victim and his or her family need to be positive, so the tendency is to lessen the suffering, even disregard it as much as possible.
Nevertheless, it is there, and it may be there for quite a long time — for good, if wounds turn into ugly scars. Therefore, a vigorous advocate is a necessity.
An attorney with experience in defending individuals with these types of injuries brings value to your claim.
He or she has researched the effects of dog attack injuries, how to gather the information required to completely prove not only what transpired in the past but also what the long term side effects will be, the techniques and procedures of insurance agencies when dealing with significant instances like these, and how to effectively evaluate these cases to make sure that the victims get everything that they deserve.
A lawyer with expertise has the talent to objectively assess both the strengths and the weaknesses of a claim. Furthermore, a lawyer is the only person that can turn a claim into a lawsuit if you are not being treated fairly. Without worrying about threat of a lawsuit, you are at the mercy of the insurance company.
Furthermore, the treatments typically followed by animal control departments in “dog court” proceedings could accidentally endanger the victim’s rights.
A victim and her loved ones consequently should not speak with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, acquires the department’s commitment as to which laws and techniques they will be following, and is content that the matters dealt with in another place in Dog Bite Law will be resolved reasonably.
The risks of not retaining a lawyer
If you are working with the insurance firm without an attorney, then, as seriously as you are taking your injuries, the insurance company isn’t — there is no doubt of that.
Other people with equivalent injuries have retained attorneys to present their claims to that very same insurance carrier.
One thing that all those individuals have in common is a frame of mind of seriousness about what happened to them, and a driving desire to make sure they are cared for fairly.
The insurance company pays the suitable amount to those people, but not the people who don’t take the initial step of safeguarding their rights by keeping an attorney.
The individual at the insurance firm that you are working with (called the “adjuster”) may appear sincere and sympathetic — a very, very nice individual, a nurturing person.
However, he or she has to report to others you will not talk to: a supervisor, a claims examiner, a regional manager, and eventually the corporate office. The adjuster is paid an income and has a family.
He or she wants to keep on working for that business, and maybe get a raise and a promotion. None of that will be risked for you.
Even if the adjuster hopes to assist you, because of some rapport which you think has developed among the two of you, you will not necessarily be treated fairly by the supervisor, claims examiner, regional manager, and corporate office. They are not familiar with you. To them, you’re absolutely nothing but an individual with no a lawyer.
You’re not working with the adjuster, you are dealing with a faceless corporation, and to that firm you are nothing but a file, a liability, somebody that needs money that otherwise would be dispersed to the shareholders as profit.
If you don’t retain a lawyer, you are on your own, against all people at the insurance firm, and all of its attorneys. When was the last time that you heard a happy ending to that story?
The prices of creating a law suit are generally comparatively small, when compared to the amount of money which will be acquired. In a normal lawsuit, they may come to between $1000 and $2000.
However, cases that are being arranged for trial end up being very expensive – have tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunately only 2% of lawsuits actually go to trial, so there is no significant chance of the costs “consuming up” the recovery.
It should be noted that the contingency fee system is exclusively American and that it has been under attack in recent years. Because it enables regular individuals to acquire legal help, the corporate world — insurance agencies and other industries — may be attempting to pass laws to abolish or cripple it.
These laws take numerous different forms, such as an arbitrary limit on the quantity that a victim’s attorney can charge.
Note that only the victim’s attorney will be subject to any restriction, while the insurance industry’s attorneys would proceed to not only charge their usual hourly rates but also rely upon the substantial monetary coffers of their successful customers.
The tort system exists for the advantage of everyday individuals as opposed to the interests of the business world, and therefore the program and its critical players (the victims and their lawyers) constantly undergo attacks and regularly must fight for their legal rights.