One area of personal injury law which you may not be familiar with is that of dog bites, an occurrence which injures tens of thousands of Americans each and every year. Now one common misconception which there is when it comes to this kind of injury is that all dog bites are the fault of the owner. As any personal injury attorney will tell you, this is not the case, and today we are going to look a little deeper into how these accidents come about.
There is more to this kind of case, so let’s have a look who’s to blame.
Dog Owners
Whilst it is true that not all cases of this nature are the fault of the dog owner, in most cases we do find that they are liable for the injury which has been sustained. This is because they have dogs which have shown a history of being aggressive or a history of biting people. Owners of these dogs have a civic responsibility to make sure that their dogs are kept on a tight leash when walking and that they use a muzzle to ensure that nobody else is at risk.
One Bite Rule
Most states employ what is known as the one bite rule, which is in place to protect those dogs who have never bitten anyone before. Ultimately we are dealing with animals here and they will react to certain behaviors in certain ways. This means that even the most tranquil and domesticated of dogs can bite from time to time. This law ensures that if this happens, then neither the dog or the owner will be considered as being responsible for the attack. Naturally once this has happened, the owner will need to ensure that they take extra precautions to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
Provocation
Another reason why the blame cannot always be laid at the feet of the owner is that they can find themselves in a situation whereby they or their dog have been provoked, and this is what has lead to the attack. Neither dogs nor their owners can be blamed if someone has actively provoked them and this has then lead to an attack by way of a bite.
Premises
And finally if the victim of the attack has been bitten whilst on the dog owner’s premises without permission, they will be considered as the liable party and not the victim in the eyes of the law. Given how territorial dogs are, biting someone in this situation is absolutely not considered as being an affront, because of the fact that someone entered the property without permission.
In the large majority of cases it is the owner of the dog who is responsible, but this is not a given and it is important that the case on the whole is looked into in order to understand why the dog acted in this kind of way.
