Animal Bite Lawsuits
Animal Bites Facts
Animal bites can be serious – even fatal. If you or a loved one has been bitten by an animal, please consider contacting an experienced attorney who can guide you to the best course of action. Should you and your attorney pursue a case, Lawsuit Hotline can possibly give you access to the funds you need before your case is settled.
Two to five million animal bites per year in the U.S. The vast majority of those animal bites are dog bites – 85 to 90%. Most of those dog bites involve children. The remaining 10-15% consists of cat bites, a small percentage of rodent bites, and a very small percentage of human bites.
If every person living in Los Angeles was bitten by an animal this year, that’s the scope of the animal bite – particularly dog bite – problem. Not only is this a health risk, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Animal bites can cause disfigurement, scarring, limited mobility, emotional distress, and infection. Of these complications, the most common is infection, sometimes fatal. Rabies is the most feared, but your health care provider is concerned about tetanus and a variety of other bacterial infections. UpToDate for Patients, a medical information website, offers some excellent guidelines for evaluation of animal bites.
Read the patient information sheet: Animal Bites (Beyond the Basics)
Experience
You hear a snarling-yelp followed by a high-pitched scream and a wailing cry. In a split-second you process the sounds. Where’s the child? Which dog inflicted the bite? How bad is it?
Beautiful little blonde Selena visited the neighbors’ house many times to play with their Black Labrador. The dog loved kids. That is, until Selena wandered up behind him while he was eating. The little girl threw her arms around his neck as she’d done dozens of times before. In one motion, the loving Black Lab snapped at her in a leave-me-alone warning, caught her face with his teeth, and inflicted wounds that required 128 stitches to repair. Now an adult, Selena still has a small scar where her eyebrow was matched back together.
Jennifer took her family pet, a nine-year-old cat with tortoise-shell coloring, to the vet for routine vaccinations and a check-up. This particular cat disliked the vet’s office and had been removed to a back room with a technician in order to administer vaccinations the year before. With Jennifer’s arms covered in scratches from putting the cat, Callie, into the travel crate, she held Callie’s head while the vet started the exam. Callie’s growling escalated from a low warning to a loud protest.
“She’s REALLY mad,” Jennifer observed, while the vet continued the exam.
The thermometer was the last straw. With a sharp “me-arghh!” Callie bit down on Jennifer’s left thumb. A tooth went through her thumbnail, and Jennifer dripped blood down the hall to the small restroom. On the vet’s advice, Jennifer called her medical doctor to treat the wound. Within the 24 hours it took to see her regular doctor, the thumb was turning red and getting warmer. Even though Callie’s rabies shots were up-to-date, cat bites carry a wide variety of other infectious bacteria. Jennifer ended up with a tetanus shot and a 10-day course of antibiotics.
Action
Many people that are involved in animal bite lawsuits eventually face financial hardships. Many can’t work and the legal process is long and drawn out. Some cases take many years to resolve. Lawsuit Hotline specializes in the funding of settled and pre-settled animal bite lawsuits. During the funding process, Lawsuit Hotline requests some of the case documentation, underwriting evaluates the lawsuit to determine whether funding can be extended, and if approved, a contract is issued for the injured party and his/her attorney to sign. The injured party’s attorney then repays the lien when the case is resolved. All funding is non recourse, which means that if for any reason, there is no recovery on the case, then no money is owed back.