There are easy dog bite cases, and there are hard ones. Some of the hard cases are difficult because of unique elements that are only found in dog bite cases and therefore are unfamiliar:
- A defendant that is the victim's aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, best friend, or neighbor, who could be 100% in the victim's corner if approached correctly.
- A victim who is 100% against filing a lawsuit versus any of the people mentioned in the prior paragraph.
- A potential defendant that denies he has insurance.
- Witnesses who are children.
- The science of animal behavior, particularly the causes of canine aggression against human beings.
- The particulars, conflicts and simultaneous interaction of four types of laws that usually are applicable in every dog bite case: municipal ordinances, County ordinances, state statutes, and case law (including the Restatement of Law of Torts).
- "Dog court" hearings (i.e., administrative hearings or court proceedings focusing on the dangerousness of the dog and the irresponsibility of its owner or handler).
- A wide range of expert witnesses, almost all of whom are self trained, and essentially fake.
- Unique legal concepts, such as ownership of a dog, "harboring" a dog, "keeping" a dog, and provocation of a dog. Unusual legal concepts (not unique but unusual) like parental negligence in the supervision of a child, suits by children against parents, the standard exclusion for household residents in policies of homeowner insurance and renters insurance, the legal boilerplate that must be included and excluded from settlement documentation in order to ensure favorable tax treatment, and the paperwork and court presentation for the settlement of a minor's claim for bodily injuries.
All of the above topics are explored in detail in the seminar-on-video, Anatomy of a Dog Bite Case. This article shall focus on two of the three threshold requirements for successful claim: a legally liable defendant, and insurance coverage. In dog bite cases, finding these things can present unusual hurdles.
The hypothetical case
Let us consider a common and apparently "slamdunk" factual scenario. An unmarried, 30-year-old woman visited the home of a guy that she was interested in. She rang the doorbell. The guy opened the door, gave her a hug, and welcomed her inside. She saw a dog, and asked whether it was safe for her to pet it. The guy and his male roommate said that the dog was friendly. She leaned over to pet it, and it sprang at her face without warning. The teeth of the dog caught her forehead, one nostril and her upper lip, producing substantial injuries which included permanent scars and lumps. The jurisdiction has a "dog bite statute" which makes dog owners legally liable for all losses and damages inflicted by their dogs. The animal control department conducted an investigation which confirmed that the roommate was the owner of the dog.
Sounded like a great case, but complications soon arose. The victim retained a lawyer who sent a letter to the dog owner, asking for insurance information. The dog owner responded by saying that he did not have insurance and was merely renting the house. The lawyer wrote to the owner of the residence, again asking for insurance information. A law firm that does coverage cases responded on behalf of the owner of the house and her liability insurer, denying liability and asserting that there was no coverage applicable to the tenant.
Steps that the dog bite victim's lawyer should take
In a case like the one above described, the next thing to do is to start looking for other owners of the dog who hopefully will have insurance to cover the dog attack. There are no hard and fast rules as to who the owner of a dog is. If you want it to be the person who is named as the owner on the animal control report, then look no further. An insurance company, a judge and a jury will accept as true the ownership information given in records maintained by the animal control department or humane society.
Investigation might reveal a person who can be considered an owner of the dog. Thankfully, there are a lot of humane behaviors that can make a person the owner of a dog: feed the dog, let it sleep your room, teach it tricks, give it commands, walk it every day, and things like that.
Similarly, a person might own a dog that he thought he had given away. Consider a dog that comes into a household during a marriage. Both the man and the woman are listed as the owner of the dog. Then they divorce or become separated. The man retains the dog (and thinks he owns it) while the woman has what you might call visitation rights; she takes the dog to the veterinarian, walks it and keeps it at her new apartment for a couple of days per month. Odds are that she and her ex-husband will both be considered to be the owners of the dog.
This other owner does not have to be a spouse. An ex-girlfriend may still be living with her parents or may have moved back into her parents house. Anybody living in a house (other than a renter) is covered by the homeowners or renters insurance that covers the house. That means that the ex-girlfriend is covered. Under those circumstances the dog bite lawyer's job would be to go after the ex-girlfriend as a co-owner so there will be coverage by virture of her parents' insurance.
If you cannot find an insured co-owner of the dog, the next step would be to conduct an investigation to see whether the landlord is responsible for the incident in some way. Sometimes the landlord can be held responsible because he overlooked his own rules which forbade dogs on the premises. Sometimes you have a situation where the dog has bitten other people, and the landlord, the manager or the security company who worked for them knew it but did nothing about it. In many states the landlord has an obligation to get rid of either a vicious dog or the tenant who owns it, and if the landlord fails to do so, he can be held liable.
If you cannot find a co-owner of the dog or a landlord that can be held liable, consider whether the dog owner was serving as the agent of another person, or whether the dog was used in connection with company business. For example, if the in-residence caretaker on a lot of real property is uninsured for dog attacks, consider whether the presence of the caretaker's dogs serves a business purpose of the owner of the lot, such as keeping trespassers off the property. That would make the property owner liable as the employer or as the principal of the caretaker.
In cases where you are stuck with an uninsured dog owner, you have to look hard at his assets and prospects. You need to find out not only whether he owns real property, cars and boats, but also what line of work he is in, what his job title is, and what it pays. In other words, you have to engage an investigator to do an asset check. Do not stop there, however. Find out who the dog owner's parents are, determine whether they are still alive, and form a judgment as to whether the dog owner is soon going to inherit a considerable sum of money from them.
Suppose none of that works? Well, you need to file a lawsuit. In many cases, you will be pleasantly surprised when you receive a copy of the Answer, signed by an insurance defense attorney. It turns out that many dog owners are so convinced that the dog had every right to bite the victim, or that the dog did not hurt the victim, that they conceal their insurance until the last possible moment. In other cases, you will receive a phone call from a privately retained attorney, who will be more than willing to confirm that the defendants have no insurance, and to begin negotiating a modest settlement.
Finally, there will be those times when the defendant fails to respond to the lawsuit. The dog bite victim has to decide whether to obtain a judgment based on the default. That is a very difficult decision to make. The standard of care for attorneys does not necessarily require taking a default judgment in every case, especially after determining that the defendant lacks insurance, assets and prospects.
When an uninsured defendant appears with an attorney, you need to either enter into a settlement that makes sense given the defendant's financial condition, or continue to pursue the possibility that there is insurance. The privately retained defense lawyer may not be aware of all the different types of insurance that can cover personal liabilities; he might be relying on the dog owner who incorrectly believes that he lacks coverage for dog bites. In fact, there are not only homeowner policies and the renters policies, but also umbrella policies and excess liability policies. There are even some insurance brokers who, in selling a customer "full coverage" for motor vehicle accidents, combine a low-cost motor vehicle liability policy with an umbrella policy – and the latter covers dog bites. Consider using interrogatories to learn the name of the dog owner's insurance broker so that you can go to the source and ask questions there.
