What Are Unique Issues to a Claim Regarding a Dog Attack?

You do run into a lot of different issues with insurance companies. To give you one example, if there’s an accident that would also be premises liability where a dog bites you while you’re legally on someone’s property. A lot of times, the owner of the actual dog may be renting that house, and you may have a landlord that’s insured where the owner of the dog itself does not have insurance coverage. So, we would have to prove that the landlord, one, had knowledge of the dog’s being lawfully present on that property, and two, that they had knowledge of the vicious propensity of the dogs that were on their property.

So a lot of times you’ll have instances where insurance companies will deny liability and fight you tooth and nail, really sticking to their story. However, through the discovery process, a lot of times we’re able to prove that, not only did they know about the dogs, but they did know about prior instances, whether it was a prior dog bite or dogs getting in fights with each other, and we’re able to put them on notice to establish liability against their insurance company.

If you have been injured in a dog attack on someone else’s property, call Hach & Rose, LLP, at 212-779-0057 for legal representation with a New York premises liability lawyer.