If you have been injured in a Hollywood Dog Attack, please give us a call now for your complimentary, private assessment with a skilled Hollywood Animal Attack attorney.
The First Things to Do After Being Bitten
It is very important to identify the animal that bit you, mainly because if it is a stray and you cannot identify it, you are dealing with the possibility of needing to submit to treatment for rabies, which can be painful.
Also, if you were attacked by a dog or any wild animal being kept by an individual, you most likely are qualified to receive compensation via the animal’s owner, and you might genuinely need that compensation to repay your medical expenses, reimburse you for lost income, pay for plastic surgery at some point, as well as make it easier to overcome the discomfort and being affected by your injuries.
After that, get medical attention. You will undoubtedly be in very good company, because 1,000 Americans arrive in emergency rooms every day of the year because of animal attacks alone!
Should you be harmed around the face, demand treatment by a plastic surgeon because emergency room physicians are amazing at keeping individuals alive but not necessarily the very best at making stitches and injuries look great.
After that, don’t forget to keep to the directions of the physician and take all of the prescribed medicines that are prescribed (with the exception of the painkillers, which often are at your discretion).
You may additionally be ordered to remain out of the sunshine, use sun block, use scar tissue reduction lotion, change bandages, go in for follow up treatment, report for removal of stitches, massage the recovering zones, etc.
If that’s the case, do it!
The final decision as to whether you will need rabies shots must be left to your doctor. Shots are not always required, because rabies may not be within your geographic region. Don’t be concerned if your doctor tells you that you do not have to have this painful treatment.
If you have been seriously injured in a Hollywood Animal Attack, please call us now for a no fee, private assessment with a knowledgeable Hollywood Animal Attack attorney.
If the animal owner is insured, you may get a call from an insurance carrier representative. You should question him or her for the subsequent information:
- Name of insurance company
- Address of his or her office
- Telephone number
- Claim number
- Name of the individual who is insured
- The money available to pay medical charges (not everything, just medical costs)
Take note of the following:
- Do not talk about money, payment of money, repayment, damage
value or whatever else including money - Do not set up session
- Do not write a letter or a memo
- Do not allow yourself to be tape recorded
- Do not let the victim to be photographed
- Do not focus on who is liable
- Do not accept any money
Steps to Protect Your Legal Rights
If you have been injured in a Hollywood Animal Bite, please call us today for a complimentary, confidential assessment with a knowledgeable Hollywood Animal Bite lawyer.
A dog attack victim must do the subsequent things to preserve his or her rights:
- Identify the dog. In a very serious situation, this might entail acquiring and analyzing a DNA sample, which would require a lawyer’s involvement.
- Get the name and address of the owner of the dog, when possible. If you can, obtain the dog permit details.
- Get the name, address and telephone number of any prospective witnesses. You may need to return to the accident scene, and knock on the doors of nearby homes and companies. You also should revisit the scene of the incident a couple of times at the same time at which the accident happened, because people often have a habit of visiting the same places as part of their daily regimen.
- Take photos of all of your injuries, bruises and bloody garments.
- If attainable, attain insurance details from the dog owner.
- If skin was lacerated or worse, or if the damage ended up being to the face, or if the victim is a child, you can and should consult with an attorney for nothing.
- Get your attorney started when the info is fresh! The details of your lawsuit have to be proved; the extent of your traumas must be established. As noticeable as the facts and wounds might be to you, they will not be obvious to an insurance adjuster sitting at a desk in an
office building a few weeks or months following the attack. - Furthermore, doctors are interested in curing you than proving the type and level of your injuries to an insurance company, so the proper documentation has to be asked for from them at the proper times. Your lawyer will get the essential evidence and keep an eye on your treatment, so that the insurance adjuster will comprehend exactly what happened, and will give you an acceptable amount of money, when possible.
- Retain your attorney before taking part in any kind of proceeding involving the dog! The laws of most cities, counties and states make it possible for local authorities to decide whether a dog is harmful and, if so, the fate of the dog. Often this is called a “dangerous dog hearing,” but it goes by additional names as well.
- Because “dog court” procedures may inadvertently compromise the victim’s rights, she should not speak with animal control authorities until her attorney compares the city and county ordinances, gets the department’s commitment as to which laws and methods they will be following, and is pleased that the concerns addressed below will be solved fairly.
- If the victim gets a subpoena, her testimony is required, making
- it even more crucial to immediately seek the advice of with a lawyer — because a subpoena must be followed, to its letter.
If you have been injured in a Hollywood Animal Attack, please contact us right now for a free, confidential consultation with a skilled Hollywood Animal Attack lawyer.
The victim must remember the following:
- Do not sign anything! Yes, you typically can sign the clinic admission files (given that you were not bitten in the clinic itself). However,
sign absolutely nothing displayed by any insurance company, the owner of the dog, or the landlord or other owner of the property where the
assault took place. Do not write to, or make a report for, any insurance company, dog owner, or property manager or other property owner. - Do not hesitate to consult a lawyer! There are laws called “statutes of limitations.” They say that you eliminate all of your legal rights unless you file a court case within a certain amount of time after sustaining a bodily injury. Therefore, contact a lawyer as soon as possible.
The Dog Attack Victim’s Right to a Lawyer
A dog bite victim may incur many distinct kinds of injuries and losses, from medical bills and mental destruction, to loss of the opportunity to earn income in the future because of disfigurement.
A victim may be entitled to recover these losses from someone else and that individuals insurance company, provided that the victim provides the necessary evidence, first to the insurance company and then perhaps in a court of law.
There are two sets of laws the victim must abide by, particularly those spelling out who is liable for the injuries and losses, and those imposing strict guidelines of evidence and procedure to set up that liability.
If you have been seriously injured in a Hollywood Animal Bite, please give us a call today for a no cost, confidential consultation with a knowledgeable Hollywood Animal Bite lawyer.
Parents have special things to consider any time their kids are injured.
A wounded person and his or her family are not mentally in a position of intensely enforcing their privileges. The most important task they confront is ensuring the victim heals.
In death cases, the family members grieve; it doesn’t gather facts and put together legal briefs. In cases short of death, the victim and his or her family must be positive, so the tendency is to lessen the suffering, even ignore it as much as possible.
Nevertheless, it is there, and it may remain there for quite a long time — for good, if wounds turn into ugly scars. Therefore, a vigorous advocate is a necessity.
An attorney with expertise in representing individuals with these injuries brings value to your lawsuit.
He or she has examined the outcomes of dog attack injuries, how to collect the data essential to completely prove not only what occurred in the past but also what the long term outcomes will be, the methods and processes of insurance firms when dealing with serious cases like these, and the best way to properly review these instances to ensure that the victims get everything that they deserve.
An attorney with knowledge has the ability to objectively evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of a lawsuit. Furthermore, an attorney is the only person who can turn a claim into a lawsuit if you are not being cared for fairly. Without the presence of threat of a lawsuit, you are at the mercy of the insurance carrier.
Also, the treatments often followed by animal control departments in “dog court” hearings may inadvertently compromise the victim’s rights. A victim and her family therefore should not converse with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, acquires the department’s dedication as to which laws and procedures they will be following, and is content that the matters addressed somewhere else in Dog Bite Law will be fixed reasonably.
If you have been seriously injured in a Hollywood Animal Attack, please call us right now for your no cost, confidential assessment with an experienced Hollywood Animal Bite attorney.
The Dangers of Not Retaining a Lawyer
If you are working with the insurance firm without an attorney, then, as seriously as you are taking your injuries, the insurance company isn’t — there is no doubt of that.
Other people with similar injuries have retained lawyers to present their lawsuits to that very same insurance carrier. One point that all those individuals have in common is an attitude of importance about what happened to them, and a driving need to ensure they are taken care of fairly. The insurance firm will pay the appropriate amount to people, but not the people who don’t take the initial step of guarding their rights by holding onto a lawyer.
The person at the insurance company that you are doing business with (called the “adjuster”) may seem truthful and sympathetic — a very, very nice person, a patient person.
However, he or she needs to report to others you will not talk to: a supervisor, a lawsuits examiner, a regional supervisor, and finally the corporate office. The adjuster is paid an income and has a family. He or she wants to carry on working for that organization, and perhaps get a raise and a promotion. None of that will be risked for you.
Even if the adjuster needs to aid you, because of some connection that you believe has developed between the both of you, you will not always be taken care of fairly by the supervisor, claims examiner, regional manager, and corporate office.
They are not familiar with you. To them, you’re absolutely nothing but a person without an attorney. You are not dealing with the adjuster, you are dealing with a faceless company, and to that corporation you are nothing but a file, a legal responsibility, an individual that wants money which normally would be dispersed to the shareholders as profit.
If you do not retain an attorney, you’re on your own, against all people at the insurance firm, and all of its lawyers. When was the last time that you heard a happy ending to that story?
The expenses of making a lawsuit are actually rather small, compared to the amount of money that is to be attained. In an common claim, they might come to between $1000 and $2000. However, cases which are being prepared for trial end up being very expensive — tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunately only 2% of claims actually go to trial, so there is no major risk of the fees “consuming up” the recovery.
It needs to be noted that the contingency fee system is uniquely American and that it has been under attack in recent years.
Because it enables normal people to get legal help, the corporate world — insurance companies and other industries — has been attempting to pass laws to abolish or cripple it. These laws take numerous different forms, such as an arbitrary limit on the amount that a victim’s lawyer can charge. Note that only the victim’s attorney will be subject to any limitation, while the insurance industry’s attorneys would continue to not just charge their usual hourly rates but also rely upon the vast monetary coffers of their successful customers.
The tort system exists for the advantage of normal individuals as opposed to the interests of the business world, and therefore the program and its essential players (the victims and their attorneys) consistently experience attacks and constantly need to fight for their legal rights.
If you have been seriously injured in a Hollywood Dog Attack, please give us a call today for a complimentary, private assessment with a skilled Hollywood Animal Bite attorney.
