I Was Bitten By a Dog While Working

If you were bitten by a dog while working you might have a good personal injury claim that will allow you to collect medical expenses and other money from the party responsible for keeping your work place safe. Typically, in dog bite cases, courts have ruled that bite victims are owed medical expenses, loss of income awards, and, in some cases, compensation for the pain and suffering accompanying a dog bite.

Personal Injury Claims

Courts have found that property owners have a duty to keep their property reasonably safe. A reasonably safe property includes controlling dogs from biting. In a dog bite case, the bitten person must prove three things. First, the bitten person must prove that the property where the bite happened was not kept in a reasonably safe condition. For dog bites, this is pretty simple. The bitten person will argue that the biting dog made the property unsafe.

Second, the bitten person must prove that the property owner was negligent in failing to keep the dog from biting. “Negligence” is defined as “the lack of ordinary care.” A negligent dog handler fails to use the kind of care a normal dog handler would use in a similar situation. Knowledge that the dog has bitten before when the dog bit you, for example, tends to demonstrate that the dog handler was negligent and should have been more careful.

The last thing an injured person must prove for a successful dog bite claim is that the dog bite did, in fact, result in injury. A simple nip on the hand, for example, will probably not lead to a monetary award. So, if you were bitten by a dog, make sure you go to the hospital for treatment. Keep meticulous track of all the doctor’s records, charts, and prescriptions so that you can prove that the injury did in fact injure you.

Damages

Oftentimes, dog bite victims are workers who work away from an office and travel around the community to do their jobs. A plumber, for example, has to get from house to house in order to get paid. If the plumber is bitten at work and has to miss appointments for the day, the plumber loses income. These type of dog bite victims are often good candidates to recover loss of income damages.

Pain and suffering awards include compensation for the anxiety a dog bite produces. These are harder to get because dog bites are usually relatively minor injuries. It is possible, however, to ask for these damages.