(also, Pre-Existing Conditions)
If a victim sustains an injury to the part of his body which was bit, his dog bite case becomes complicated. Instead of simply presenting the dog bite injuries, the victim's lawyer has to also separate the consequences of the bite from the consequences of the second injury.
The lawyer's presentation to the insurance company and court will be based on the assumption that the injuries are only from the dog attack. If it turns out that this assumption is incorrect, then the case will not be worth what the attorney was asking for. The victim's attorney therefore has to talk to the client's doctors, for the purpose of establishing the differences (if any) between the injuries from the bite and those from the later accident.
It is imperative for a client to be forthcoming about later accidents. In the discovery phase of a lawsuit, the client will be asked about them. If the client tries to cover up a subsequent accident but the defense learns about it, the effect on the dog bite case will be disastrous, because the client will look like a liar.
The foregoing reasons also apply to pre-existing injuries. Sometimes the client's doctors will confirm that the dog attack made a pre-existing condition worse.
Therefore, clients must always be frank and open about injuries they sustained before and after the dog attack.
