Dog bite injuries tend to be either very small or very large. Either the dog nicked your arm and drew a little bit of blood or the dog caused a lot of damage. The small injuries tend to be a result of a dog that is startled or backed into a corner and looking for a way out. The large injuries tend to occur when dangerous or aggressive dogs are not properly maintained by their owners.
Either way, if you’ve been bitten by someone else’s dog, you’re probably left with the feeling that you and your insurance company shouldn’t be the ones who are responsible for paying the bills.
If you do have health insurance, they should be paying the bills first. The last thing that you want to do after being bitten by a dog is let the medical bills rack up or go into collections. If you have health insurance, let them pay the bills initially and seek recourse from the dog owner’s homeowner’s insurance policy after you have made a full recovery. Remember that the homeowner’s insurance policy is only going to write you one check as a settlement of your dog bite case. They will not be paying the bills piecemeal as they come in.
Answer:
No. Simply bringing a personal injury claim does not mean, in and of itself, that you are headed for the courthouse. The vast majority of cases settle without even having to file a lawsuit. However, in cases where the insurance company is unreasonable, you may be forced to file a lawsuit and even take your case to trial in order to recover what you are entitled to under the law.
At the Law Offices of David L. Marks, we approach every case from the beginning as if it were to go to trial. That way, we are not surprised when we get there.
Answer:
If you’ve been bitten by a dog in Virginia, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the personal injury. This means that either the case must be settled or a lawsuit must be filed by that date.
Answer:
Yes. In Maryland, there is a three year statute of limitations on personal injury cases. This means that within three years of the date of your injury, you must have either settled your dog bite case or filed a lawsuit. Otherwise, you will not be able to recover a dime.
It is important to get a Maryland dog bite attorney involved long before the statute of limitations runs out on your case, however. The policy in our office is (with limited exception) not to accept dog bite cases with less than 90 days left on the statute of limitations. We do this in order to give ourselves enough time to establish who owned the dog, whether there is insurance in place and what sort of injuries you have.
If you were bitten by a dog in Maryland, give us a call before it’s too late.
No. Under Virginia law, an auto insurance company may not “drop” you for filing a cliam under the uninsured motorist provision of your car insurance policy. This is codified in Virginia code 38.2-2212(C)(1)(n):
- No insurer shall refuse to renew a motor vehicle insurance policy solely because of any one or more of the following factors:
- (n) One or more claims submitted under the uninsured motorists coverage of the policy where the uninsured motorist is known or there is physical evidence of contact
Many people involved in accidents where the other driver either had let his insurance lapse or had minimal coverage are afraid to make a claim under their own underinsured motorist coverage because they think the insurance company will drop them.
Our question to them is: What is the point of paying premiums on insurance coverage for all these years when you’re not going to use it when you finally need it?
One of the more frequent questions that we get from clients who have been involved in car crashes in Fairfax and who have received poor settlement offers from an insurance company is why we’re not suing the company. When you file a lawsuit in Virginia for a car accident, you have to name the other driver.
Your lawsuit, then, is styled “John Plaintiff v. Barbara Defendant” instead of “John Smith v. Allstate.” This confuses a lot of people. Allstate provides insurance coverage for the claim (they hire the defense attorney, pay all of their client’s litigation costs, and pay any settlement or verdict within the policy limits), but Allstate is never named in the suit.
In fact, the judge or jury that hears your case will never know that Allstate was involved in the case at all. This is because of a rule in Virginia that prohibits the mentioning of insurance (auto, health or disability) in personal injury cases. The rule is designed to keep the jury from becoming prejudiced and rendering a lower verdict than they otherwise would (in an effort to keep their own insurance rates down) or a higher verdict than they might (knowing that the verdict would be paid by an insurance company and not by the Defendant himself).
