What are Mitigating Factors in Animal Bite Cases?
In this video attorney Joy Robertson explains mitigating factors in animal bite cases and the process that goes along with it. View the video below or see the transcript to hear Joy’s explanation for this frustrating topic.
Transcript Hi my name is Joy Robertson, I’m an attorney in Memphis, Tennessee, I help my clients recover compensation after they have suffered injuries from an animal attack. So today I want to talk to you about some mitigating factors that should be considered when deciding whether to pursue a personal injury option in reference to an animal tap attack, but also if you know it’s your animal that actually attack somebody. These are important considerations to be aware of. So I’m going to pose a few scenarios for you just to kind of illustrate the point that I’m trying to make. So imagine you’re walking down the street with your dog, you have them on a leash, you know your dog is typically pretty well behaved. And this child runs up has a stick in his hand and hits your dog, the dog then bites the shackles. So this is something that Tennessee law recognizes as being a mitigating factor to liability, you know this child is arguably antagonizing the dog injured your dog, a natural response from an animal would be to bite, potentially, you know, and certainly not all dogs have it’s kind of, you know, it’s not out of the question that a dog might bite a child that kids, it would stick. The other example of this might be you know you’re walking your dog down the street, some lady comes up she asked she can pet your dog, your dog’s always friendly so you have no issue with it, but you let her know that you know hey my dog had an injury on its hind leg, you know don’t pet it there, it’s tender. The lady then, you know, just explicitly ignores that statement and she has the dog rightwards injured, the dog then snaps at her bites or injures her, you know that’s something that can mitigate liability on your part in reference to your dog. The other the other example that I want to kind of pose to you is, you know, so you have your dog, it’s in the backyard of your house. And let’s say a neighbor. A child is playing with a ball next door the ball goes over the fence, the child then decides to find events to retrieve the ball that’s flowing over into your yard. And when the child does this your dad, your dog attacks the child. So trust us you know it’s it’s an intentional tort, it’s a it’s a minimizing. It’s a minimizing doctor that could mitigate liability in reference to you. You know, so you would have an attorney represent you ideally that situation, they would bring that up to, to mitigate any liability that you might otherwise have, in reference to your dog biting the neighbor. Do you have any questions about dog liability law animal liability law in the state of Tennessee please give me a call. Thank you.
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to call Joy or her team at Douglass & Runger, PLLC at (901) 388-5805 relating to other questions about animal bite cases. What are Mitigating Factors in Animal Bite Cases-HD 1080p from Curt Runger on Vimeo.