A Bite Isn’t The Only Injury A Dog Can Inflict
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
One of the most enduring and popular pets for not just America, but the entire world, is the dog. Few animals provide the same combination of intelligence, love and loyalty that our canine friends can bring into our lives. But there’s no such thing as a perfect animal, any more than there is a perfect person. A combination of circumstance, poor control, or poor training can sometimes result in unfortunate encounters between people and dogs. That’s one of the reasons why Florida, like every other state in the country, has laws in place to address the unfortunate occasions when a dog acts out in an aggressive manner and bites another person.In such cases, the most common situation is an owner either losing control of a dog, or not paying attention during a critical moment and thus not having a dog under any sort of control at all, which results in a bite. This scenario is the one that most frequently plays out in court, and can often result in the case being taken up by an accident lawyer. This is because in some ways, an animal is regarded not just as a beloved companion, but also as property that is the direct responsibility of the owner. That means the owner has legal obligations.
Your Dog, Your Consequences
In these more common occurrences, it is understood that if a person decides to take on the responsibility of owning a dog, there’s more at stake than just the personal or ethical responsibility of ensuring the dog’s welfare. The owner also has legal obligation to keep the animal under control to ensure the safety of others. So, for example, before taking the dog out for a walk in public, the owner must first determine whether the dog’s behavior is safe enough to do so. If the dog is aggressive and has a tendency to bite people, even the owner him or herself, then taking this dog out, and having an accident where the dog bites someone qualifies as an act of negligence. The owner knew in this situation that the dog had a great likelihood of biting someone, but disregarded the risk and took the dog out to interact with the public anyway.
Typically, injuries centering around dog incidents will be based on an animal attack, with the dog in question biting someone. Where the court case will attempt to be resolved is in determining whether negligence was at work or not. For example, if a dog is normally well-behaved, the owner was keeping the animal on a leash, and that animal was under control at the time, but bit another person when that person came up to the animal and hit it, this is unlikely to result in a negligence case, especially with multiple witnesses to back up the claim. If someone deliberately provokes an animal into a defensive reaction, that is not the responsibility of the dog owner.
However, an injury through a dog bite, while the most common form of injury is not the only behavior that a dog owner must be responsible for.
Size Matters
You must be able to keep your dog under control if you take it into public areas, and if you can’t because of physical differences, that presents a legal problem for you. For example, if your dog is one of the larger breeds, such as a St. Bernard, or a Great Dane that can weigh hundreds of pounds, you put yourself at legal risk should you lose control. If the dog should panic, or you are aware that should it decide to ignore the leash, you can’t control it, and it runs away from you and knocks over a child or someone elderly, this is negligence, and can still be taken to court with the same legal ramifications as a dog bite, even though no dog bite actually occurred.
In the same way, not leashing a dog at all, and allowing it to run or wander wherever it likes may also leave you open to negligence. Even if the dog should dash onto the street and get hit by a car, it’s not necessarily a given that the car owner will be open to a lawsuit, if the dog darted out from between cars, and you had no way to prevent this due to a lack of a leash.
Your Dog Is Your Family
This is why, if you’re serious about having a dog, you should be serious about proper care and control of the animal. The animal may have a mind of his or her own, but the animal’s behavior can—and should—be curtailed by intervention and control of the owner. If not, you may find yourself facing a problem with a dog bite case, or some other act of negligence in a court of law.