If you have been seriously injured in a Downey Dog Bite, please call us today for your complimentary, confidential consultation with an experienced Downey Animal Attack attorney.
The initial things to do after being bitten
It is very important identify the dog that bit you, mainly because if it is a stray and you are not able to identify it, you’re dealing with the potential of having to undergo treatment for rabies, which can be painful.
Also, if you were bitten by a dog or any wild animal being kept by someone, you most likely are eligible to receive compensation by the dog’s owner, and you also may possibly genuinely need that compensation to pay your medical expenses, reimburse you for lost revenue, pay for cosmetic surgery later on, and allow you to conquer the pain and being affected by your injuries.
After that, get medical attention. You will be in very good company, because 1,000 Americans show up in emergency rooms each day of the entire year because of animal bites alone! Should you be injured around the face, insist on treatment by a cosmetic surgeon because emergency room doctors are amazing at keeping people alive but not necessarily the very best at making stitches and wounds look nice.
After that, you’ll want to stick to the instructions from the physician and take all of the prescribed medicines that are prescribed (aside from the painkillers, which normally are usually your discretion).
You may additionally be ordered to stay out of the sunlight, use sunscreen, use scar reduction ointment, change bandages, report for follow up treatment, go in for removal of stitches, massage the recovering locations, etc. If that’s the case, do it!
The final decision as to whether you will need rabies shots must be left to your physician. Shots are not always called for, because rabies may not be in your geographic area.
You shouldn’t be concerned if your physician tells you that you don’t need this unpleasant treatment.
If the animal owner is insured, you may get a phone call from an insurance provider representative.
Make sure you question him or her for the following information:
Do not do any of the following:
Methods to protect your legal rights
A dog bite victim has to do the subsequent things to protect his or her rights:
You also should revisit the scene of the incident a couple of times at the same time when the incident happened, because individuals may have a habit of visiting the same spots as section of their daily regimen.
As apparent as the information and injuries might be to you, they are not going to be noticeable to an insurance adjuster sitting at a desk in an office building a couple weeks or months following your attack.
Furthermore, physicians are interested in curing you than proving the nature and magnitude of your injuries to an insurance provider, so the proper paperwork must be asked for from them at the proper times.
Your attorney will acquire the essential proof and monitor your medical treatment, so that the insurance adjuster will fully grasp exactly what happened, and will provide you with a sufficient amount of money, if possible.
Because “dog court” procedures may accidentally compromise the victim’s rights, she should not contact animal control authorities until her attorney compares the city and county ordinances, gets the department’s commitment as to which laws and steps they will be following, and is fulfilled that the issues addressed below will be solved fairly.
If the victim obtains a subpoena, her testimony is essential, making it even more necessary to immediately seek the advice of with a lawyer — because a subpoena must be obeyed, to its letter.
The victim must in no way do the following:
However, sign absolutely nothing presented by any insurance company, the owner of the dog, or the landlord or other owner of the property where the attack occurred. Do not write to, or make a report for, any insurance company, dog owner, or landlord or other property owner.
The dog bite victim’s right to a lawyer
A dog attack victim may sustain several various kinds of injuries and losses, from medical charges and mental destruction, to loss of the opportunity to earn income in the future because of disfigurement.
A victim may be entitled to get back these losses from someone else and that individual’s insurance company, provided that the victim presents the necessary resistant, 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 strict guidelines of evidence and procedure to establish that liability.
Parents have special things to consider if their kids are wounded.
An injured person and his or her family are not emotionally able of vigorously enforcing their privileges. The most crucial task they experience is ensuring that the victim heals.
In death cases, the relatives grieve; it does not gather evidence and prepare legal briefs. In cases short of death, the victim and his or her family need to be upbeat, so the tendency is to decrease the suffering, even disregard it whenever possible.
Nevertheless, it is there, and it may continue to be there for quite a long time — permanently, if wounds turn into ugly scars.
Therefore, a vigorous advocate is a necessity. A lawyer with expertise in defending people with these types of injuries brings value to your claim.
He or she has analyzed the effects of dog attack injuries, how to collect the data vital to completely prove not only what occurred in the past but also what the future side effects will be, the practices and steps of insurance providers when dealing with significant instances like these, and how to properly examine these circumstances to make sure that the victims get everything that they deserve.
A lawyer with experience has the ability to objectively analyze 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 cared for fairly. Without worrying about threat of a lawsuit, you’re at the mercy of the insurance company.
Furthermore, the treatments frequently followed by animal control departments in “dog court” hearings could accidentally compromise the victim’s rights.
A victim and her relatives consequently should not converse with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, gains the department’s dedication as to which laws and procedures they will be following, and is pleased that the issues addressed elsewhere in Dog Bite Law will be settled fairly.
The risks of not retaining a lawyer
If you are working with the insurance company without an attorney, then, as seriously as you are taking your injuries, the insurance company isn’t — there is no doubt of that.
People with comparable injuries have retained attorneys to show their lawsuits to that same insurance company.
One point that all those people have in common is a frame of mind of significance about what happened to them, and a driving need to be sure they are taken care of fairly.
The insurance company pays the proper amount to those people, but not people who don’t take the first step of safeguarding their privileges by holding onto a lawyer.
The individual at the insurance firm that you are doing business with (called the “adjuster”) may seem sincere and sympathetic — a very, very nice individual, a caring person.
However, he or she has to report to others you will not talk to: a supervisor, a lawsuits examiner, a local supervisor, 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 business, and perhaps get a raise and a promotion. None of that will be risked for you.
Even if the adjuster wants to assist you, because of some bond that you think has developed among the both of you, you will not necessarily be handled fairly by the supervisor, claims examiner, regional manager, and corporate office. They are not familiar with you. To them, you are nothing but an individual with no a lawyer.
You’re not working with the adjuster, you are dealing with a faceless company, and to that company you are nothing but a file, a legal responsibility, a person that wants money that otherwise would be distributed to the shareholders as profit.
If you do not retain an attorney, 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 costs of creating a claim usually are relatively small, when compared to the amount of money that is to be attained. In a common claim, 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 risk of the prices “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 ordinary people to obtain legal help, the corporate world — insurance providers and other industries — may be trying to pass laws to abolish or cripple it.
These laws take many different forms, such as an arbitrary limit on the amount that a victim’s attorney can charge.
Note that only the victim’s lawyer would be subject to any limitation, while the insurance industry’s lawyers would proceed to not only charge their usual hourly rates but also rely upon the substantial monetary coffers of their rich customers.
The tort system is available for the advantage of everyday individuals rather than the interests of the business world, and therefore the program and its critical players (the victims and their attorneys) regularly undergo attacks and constantly must fight for their rights.