Dog Bite Injuries

Would you keep an appliance in your home if you knew these facts about it:

(1) It injures about 800,000 people a year in the USA - with one out of every 6 injuries being serious enough to require medical attention.
(2) 75% of the injuries are to the victim's face. 
(3) Its victims are three times more likely to be children than adults. 
(4) It is the fifth most frequent cause of emergency hospital visits for children in t he USA.
(5) The most severe injuries occur almost exclusively to children less than 10 years of age.

 

The product is called a "dog", a/k/a "man's best friend".

We humans love dogs and are willing to live with these risks because of the love, support and companionship that dogs provide. I am a dog lover myself!

 

But make no mistake; owning a dog is a BIG legal responsibility. If you do not act responsibly as a dog owner, you can, and should, be held accountable for injuries your dog causes.

 

In New York, a dog owner (defined as anyone who harbors a dog) is liable for dog attacks if the dog bite victim can prove two things: (1) the dog had "vicious propensities" (i.e., a tendency to attack) and (2) the owner knew or should have known it. That's a pretty straightforward two-step process. Or is it?

 

The problem is proving an owner knew of the dog's vicious propensities. The best and surest way to do so is to show the dog bit someone before. If you can prove that, your case is usually a slam dunk. But sometimes you don't have a prior bite. What then?

 

You can show "vicious propensities" in other ways, for example, if the dog tended to growl, snap or bare its teeth at people. It also helps if you can show that the owner tended to think of his own dog as dangerous by doing one or more of the following things: tying or chaining the dog up; fencing the dog in, keeping the dog as a guard dog, putting up "beware of dog" signs, or warning people verbally that the dog was dangerous.

 

Any dog can bite, but statistically the most likely dogs to bite are pit bulls and Rottweilers, and when these dogs bite, they mean business; together these breeds account for about 70% of dog-bite-related deaths.

 

In most cases, the law in New York requires that you prove the dog that attacked you had "vicious propensities" which the owner knew about or should have known about. Once you prove this, the law says that the owner of the dog is "strictly liable" for your injuries. This means you don't have to prove that the owner was "negligent"; all you have to prove is that he knew or should have known of the dog's vicious propensities and that the dog bit you. It is not strictly true that "every dog gets a first free bite", although some lawyers not fully versed in this area of the law may believe this to be fully accurate. This is an oversimplification of the rule in New York. Yes, if the dog that bit you had previously bitten someone else, your case is much stronger. This makes it easy to prove that the owner knew of the dog's "vicious propensities". But it is also possible to prove that the owner knew of the dog's vicious propensities by showing that the dog growled at, barked at, or chased down people on a regular basis, or that the owner kept the dog locked up, caged, leashed or tied up so that it would not do so.

 

So can you prove your New York dog bite lawsuit simply by showing the dog's breed was dangerous? NO! New York courts have rejected the theory that certain dog breeds can be "assumed" in court to be more "vicious" than others. In other words, the courts reject "breeedism", and instead treat all dogs equally in court, no matter what the breed.

 

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs each year. Children are more likely to be bitten than adults.

 

Here are some safety tips I have learned from several sources for avoiding dog bites:

 
• Never leave young children alone with a dog. 
• Avoid direct eye contact with dogs. 
• Never get your face near the dog's face.
• If you feel threatened by a dog, don't run or scream; remain still.
• If you end up on the ground, roll into a ball and be still. 
• Never disturb a dog while it is eating or sleeping or with its puppies. 
• Allow a dog to sniff you before you pet it. 
• Remain motionless when approached by an unfamiliar dog. 
• If bitten, immediately report the bite to the owner and to the police or other local authorities to see if you need to get rabies shots.

 

If you have a significant injury, call a good dog bite lawyer soon. If you don’t have one, please feel free to call me at 516.358.6900 or email me at RJaffe@lcjLawFirm.com.