Costa Mesa Dog Bite Attorney

Costa Mesa Dog Attack Attorney

What to do after a Costa Mesa Dog Bite

If you have been seriously injured in a Costa Mesa Dog Bite, please give us a call right now for a no fee, confidential consultation with a knowledgeable Costa Mesa Animal Bite lawyer.

The initial things to do after being bitten

It is very important identify the animal that attacked you, mainly because if it is a stray and you cannot identify it, you are facing the possibility of needing to submit to treatment for rabies, which can be unpleasant. Also, if you were attacked by a dog or any wild animal being kept by somebody, you probably are eligible to receive compensation by the dog’s owner, and you also may possibly genuinely need that compensation to repay your medical debts, reimburse you for lost revenue, pay for plastic surgery down the road, as well as allow you to rise above the discomfort and being affected by your injuries.

After that, get medical assistance. You are going to be in wonderful company, because 1,000 Americans show up in emergency rooms every day of the year as a result of dog bites alone! If you are wounded around the face, insist upon treatment by a cosmetic surgeon because emergency room doctors are great at keeping people alive but not always the very best at making stitches and wounds look nice. After that, don’t forget to follow the directions of the doctor and take every one of the prescriptions that are prescribed (except for the painkillers, which normally are at your discretion). You might also be ordered to remain out of the sun, use sunscreen, use scar reduction cream, change bandages, report for follow up treatment, go in for removing stitches, massage the healing areas, etc. If that’s the case, do it!

The final decision as to whether or not you need rabies shots has to be left to your doctor. Shots are not always required, because rabies may not be in your geographic location. Don’t be alarmed if your doctor tells you that you don’t need to have this painful treatment.

If you have been injured in a Costa Mesa Dog Bite, please contact us right now for your no fee, confidential assessment with a knowledgeable Costa Mesa Animal Attack lawyer.

If the animal owner is covered by insurance, you might get a phone call from an insurance company representative. Make sure you question him or her for the following information:

•  Name of insurance company
•  Address of his or her office
•  Telephone number
•  Claim number
•  Name of the person who is insured
•  The money offered to pay medical charges (not everything, just medical costs)

Do not do any of the following:

•  Do not go over money, payment of money, repayment, personal injury value or anything else regarding money
•  Do not set up session
•  Do not compose a letter or a memo
•  Do not permit yourself to be tape recorded
•  Do not allow the victim to be photographed
•  Do not go over who is liable
•  Do not accept money

Measures to protect your legal rights

If you have been injured in a Costa Mesa Animal Bite, please give us a call today for a no cost, confidential consultation with an experienced Costa Mesa Animal Attack attorney.

A dog bite victim needs to do the subsequent things to protect his or her legal rights:

• Identify the dog. In an extremely severe circumstance, this could entail acquiring and analyzing a DNA sample, that would require an attorney’s involvement.
• Get the name and address of the owner of the dog, if possible. When you can, acquire the dog permit details.
• Get the name, address and telephone number of any possible witnesses. You might have to go back to the accident scene, and knock on the doors of local houses and companies. You should also revisit the scene of the incident a couple of times at the same time at which the incident happened, because people might have a habit of going to the same spots as part of their daily regimen.
• Take photos of all of your wounds, bruises and bloody garments.
• If possible, obtain insurance information from the dog owner.
• If skin was lacerated or more serious, or in the event the damage ended up being to the facial area, or if the victim was a young child, you can and really should consult an attorney at no cost.
• Get your lawyer started while the facts are new! The details of your claim need to be proved; the severity of your injuries must be established. As obvious as the specifics and injuries may be to you, they will not be noticeable to an insurance adjuster sitting at a desk in an office building a couple weeks or months following your attack. On top of that, physicians are keen on healing you than proving the type and level of your injuries to an insurance carrier, so the proper paperwork must be requested from them at the appropriate times. Your lawyer will get the necessary evidence and monitor your treatment, so that the insurance adjuster will fully grasp exactly what took place, and will ensure that you get a sufficient amount of money, whenever possible.
• Retain your attorney prior to participating in any kind of proceeding concerning the dog! The laws of most cities, counties and states allow local authorities to decide whether a dog is harmful and, if so, the fate of the dog. Often this is referred to as a “dangerous dog hearing,” but it goes by other names as well. Because “dog court” procedures may inadvertently compromise the victim’s legal rights, she should not talk to animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, gains the department’s commitment as to which laws and processes they will be following, and is pleased that the concerns addressed below will be resolved fairly. If the victim obtains a subpoena, her testimony is essential, making it even more crucial to immediately consult with with an attorney — because a subpoena must be obeyed, to its letter.

If you have been seriously injured in a Costa Mesa Dog Attack, please call us right now for a complimentary, private consultation with a knowledgeable Costa Mesa Dog Bite lawyer.

The victim should never do the following:

• Do not sign anything! Yes, you normally can sign the hospital admission documents (provided that you were not bitten in the hospital itself). However, sign nothing presented by any insurance company, the owner of the dog, or the property manager or other owner of the property where the attack occurred. 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 rights unless you report a court case within a certain timeframe after sustaining a bodily injury. Therefore, call an attorney without delay.

The dog bite victim’s right to a lawyer

A dog bite victim may sustain several various kinds of damages and losses, from medical charges and mental injury, to loss of the possibility to gain income in the future because of disfigurement. A victim may be eligible to get back these losses from another individual and that individuals insurance company, given that the victim presents the required resistant, first to the insurance company and then perhaps in a court of law. There are two sets of laws the victim must stick to, particularly those spelling out who is responsible for the injuries and losses, and those imposing strict rules of proof and process to identify that liability.

If you have been injured in a Costa Mesa Dog Attack, please call us right now for a complimentary, confidential assessment with an experienced Costa Mesa Animal Attack lawyer.

Parents have particular criteria if their children are harmed.

A hurt individual and his or her family are not emotionally ready of vigorously enforcing their rights. The biggest task they experience is ensuring the victim heals. In death cases, the loved ones grieve; it does not obtain proof and put together legal briefs. In cases short of death, the victim and his or her family have to be optimistic, so the tendency is to minimize the hurting, even ignore it wherever possible. Nevertheless, it is there, and it may stay there for quite a long time — forever, if wounds turn into ugly scars. Therefore, a vigorous advocate is a necessity.

A lawyer with experience in defending persons with these kinds of injuries brings value to your claim. He or she has examined the effects of dog bite injuries, how to obtain the evidence needed to completely prove not only what took place in the past but also what the long term side effects will be, the methods and procedures of insurance agencies when handling significant instances like these, and how to effectively examine these cases to ensure that the victims receive what they deserve. An attorney with experience has the talent to objectively look at 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 treated fairly. With no threat of a lawsuit, you are at the mercy of the insurance carrier.

Furthermore, the methods normally followed by animal control departments in “dog court” proceedings could inadvertently endanger the victim’s rights. A victim and her family members therefore should not talk with animal control authorities until her lawyer reviews the city and county ordinances, acquires the department’s dedication as to which laws and processes they will be following, and is satisfied that the issues addressed somewhere else in Dog Bite Law will be resolved reasonably.

If you have been seriously injured in a Costa Mesa Animal Bite, please call us today for a no fee, private consultation with an experienced Costa Mesa Animal Bite lawyer.

The challenges of not retaining a lawyer

If you are working with the insurance company without an attorney, then, as seriously as you are taking your injuries, the insurance company isn’t — there is no doubt of that.

Others with equivalent injuries have retained attorneys to show their claims to that same insurance carrier. One issue that all people have in common is an frame of mind of importance about what happened to them, and a driving need to ensure they are dealt with fairly. The insurance firm pays the suitable amount to those people, but not the people who don’t take the first step of guarding their legal rights by holding onto a lawyer.

The person at the insurance company that you are interacting with (called the “adjuster”) may seem genuine and sympathetic — a very, excellent person, a patient person. However, he or she needs to report to other people you will not talk to: a supervisor, a claims examiner, a local manager, and eventually the corporate office. The adjuster is paid an income and has a family. He or she wants to keep 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 help you, because of some bond that you feel has developed between the both of you, you will not necessarily be taken care of fairly by the supervisor, claims examiner, regional manager, and corporate office. These people don’t know you. To them, you’re nothing but a person with out a lawyer.

You’re not dealing with the adjuster, you are dealing with a faceless corporation, and to that company you are nothing but a file, a legal responsibility, someone that needs money that normally would be distributed to the investors as profit.

If you do not retain an attorney, you are 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 costs of making a lawsuit are often somewhat small, when compared to the amount of money that is to be received. In an average lawsuit, they might come to between $1000 and $2000. However, cases that are being prepared for trial end up being very expensive — tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunately only 2% of lawsuits actually go to trial, so there is no substantial chance 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 regular individuals to get legal help, the corporate world — insurance companies and other industries — has been trying to pass laws to abolish or cripple it. These laws take several distinct forms, such as an arbitrary limit on the amount that a victim’s attorney can charge. Note that only the victim’s lawyer would be subject to any restriction, while the insurance industry’s attorneys would proceed to not only charge their usual hourly rates but also rely upon the substantial monetary coffers of their successful clients. The tort program exists for the benefit of regular individuals as opposed to the interests of the business world, and therefore the system and its crucial players (the victims and their lawyers) continually suffer attacks and continually need to fight for their rights.

If you have been injured in a Costa Mesa Animal Bite, please contact us right now for your no fee, confidential consultation with a knowledgeable Costa Mesa Dog Bite attorney.