If a dog owner has been unreasonably careless, when it comes to handling the proper behavior of his dog, he might be legally entitled to compensate the injuries and suffering of someone who has been injured as a result.
Negligence is by far the third legal doctrine under which the dog owner might be found liable for the damages caused by his dog. The other ones are the dog-bite statutes as well as the one-bite rule. However, a dog owner who has been negligent in ensuring the proper behavior of his dog could be held accountable for the damages caused by his dog.
A few examples
It’s a lot easier for people to envision certain legal situations if they are described simply. This is why we are going to exemplify negligent behavior on behalf of the dog owner so that you can understand the entire case.
• A dog has been properly chained while the front yard of the house is unfenced. There is a proper sign posted so that people can see that there is a danger of a dog. However, someone trespasses and gets bitten. The owner in this particular situation isn’t going to be held accountable as he is not negligent. However, if he hadn’t taken only one of the aforementioned precautions, he would have acted carelessly.
• A dog owner releases his dog in an unfenced yard. At the time, a cyclist passes through and the dog attacks him, biting him and causing him to fall off his bike, hence sustaining even more damages. In this case the owner will be held accountable as he had acted negligently.
Of course, there are quite a lot of other examples that we can provide you with. The idea is that the dog owner needs to act with reasonable care in order to prevent the accident from happening and to ensure that his dog won’t ever injure someone else.
What is the standard for reasonable care?
This is the accepted minimum of actions, which the dog owner needs to have taken in order to ensure that his dog is not a threat to anyone. Of course, this is a subjective measurement and it’s obvious that it’s going to vary from one occasion to another and this is the main reason for which the judge and jury are going to determine it separately.
Of course, if you want to ensure that you get the compensation that you are legally entitled to if you’ve been injured in a case of the kind, you need to get yourself a professional and experienced personal injury lawyer in Sault Ste. Marie to represent you. This is going to ensure that you recover everything which is legally owed to you. Your lawyer is going to assist you through all of the procedures that are needed to claim the settlement amount.