Image courtesy of eigum.
Happy new year to all. There’s been a short hiatus here at Legal News for the holidays, but we should be back in the swing of things. So let’s just dive right in.
On the personal injury front, dog bite cases in Ohio may be seeing a major change in the future. Today, the Ohio Supreme Court decided in a 5-2 ruling to change the way these cases work. Where before, dog bite victims could sue only under the dog bite law, they can now extend the same suit to include charges of general negligence. This greatly increases the amount of damages that can be awarded in these cases.
While this can look like the effect of sue happy people getting their way, you have to look at the other side of the coin as well. This decision comes in the wake of a dog bite case in which a 12 year old girl was mauled by a dog and ended up with head injuries. The damages in the case were capped at $5,000, all of which she was awarded for her medical bills. However, when injured that badly, medical bills are very likely to exceed that amount.
What we have to wonder here is: will the increased charges be used, at least for the most part, for situations like this one, or will this ruling be heavily abused? Obviously there is room for proper use of this ruling, but without the right checks and balances it seems like it could easily be overused.
If you want to know a little more about the subject at hand, check out this Cincinnati dog bite lawyer website. There’s some pretty good information on there about the effects of a dog attack.
I suppose that with the ruling already made, all we have to do is stand by and watch what happens with dog bite cases across Ohio. Give it a few years, and we’ll see how well the ruling works, and, more importantly, how much effort it will take to fix any loopholes. As always, let me know what you think about this in the comments section.
I beleive whole heartedly the Ohio law needs to be changed as far as Keeper of the Dog, it does define the word keeper and each case is different and alot of the victims suffer and the owneres get off scott free. I did a friend, next door neighbor a favor and went to let her new dog of 8 weeks out of his cage to releive himself after being in the cage for 12 hours.Had let him out 3 times before only the last time he would not go out of the door adn sat down infront of his cage and I sat with him adn was going to play with him and try to get him to go out, however he jumped me and almost oput my eye out and if had bitten deeper into my temple he would have killed me that is what they told me. Alot of medical bills. She had him on Prozac for what she called separation anxiety and had to keep in a cage most of the time when she could not watch him, she had not told me she was having problems with him or I would have never told her I would do it, I am not that stupid, I think of this attack everyday when I look in the mnirror to get dressed and see the scars, Long story short it came down it went to a Judge to decide if I was the Keeper and it took 5 months for him to decide that and it was in her attorneys favor and her insurance’s favor although this judge knew this dog had been in 6 shelters adn was advised not to take him and I have wittnesss to proff this is waht they told him. What about her responsiblity for my safety, she is the only one that knew how he as, she lived with him, fed him and took care of him and I did none of these and I did not have contol of him as stated in the Ohio Law, I had no means of controling him, he was in the cage and I let him out to take him outside to go to the bathromm adn that is all she asked me to do, Why am I at fault, I was only doing my use to be friend a favor and my next dooor neighbor and now no more, she at the time was very upset it happened and offerd to pay for everything and now she just does not care that it happened, where is the law to protect me from a vicious dog and that I beleive he was and she did not tell me. If you could give me some in sight it would be greatly appreciated, we are appealing as my attorney cannot beleive that somehting like this could happen and make the victim at faul just doing a favor for 7 minutes. thnaks for listening.