Dog Bite Case in Palm Beach, Florida Causes Permanent Injuries
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) states that 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year. Almost one in five of those bitten (885,000) require medical attention for dog bite related injuries. Sadly, most of the victims who receive medical attention are children, and half of them are bitten in the face.
The victim in this case was a mother and grandmother who had worked for an elderly socialite in Palm Beach, Florida as a housekeeper and companion for more than thirty years. Her employer was 84 years old and had lost her husband twelve years earlier. At the time of this incident, the victim’s employer owned a dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Target that she had adopted shortly after her husband had passed away, and understandably this lady had formed quite an attachment to her little dog.
There were other employees in the house and it was mutually agreed that whoever had time would walk Target. No one person was assigned this task. Usually they would just walk him to the end of the street, then turn around and come back. Sometimes they would just walk him on the owner’s property, but always on a leash. Everyone agreed that this little dog had never gotten off of the property without a leash and he had never attempted to bite anyone or go after any other dog.
On the day of this particular incident, no one else was at home so our victim in this dog bite case offered to walk Target. They were just going to the end of the street and back.
They walked down the middle of the road because there was no sidewalk there and no traffic to speak of. All of a sudden this huge black Doberman came bounding out of one of the neighbor’s yards, came up behind the victim and grabbed her right elbow with his teeth and clamped down. He was pulling and tugging at her and when she tried to push him away, he wouldn’t let go. Finally he let go of her arm and grabbed her right wrist. The victim was screaming the entire time but no one came to her rescue.
Next the dog came in front of the victim growling and bearing his teeth and lunging at her. She said all she could think of was to keep him away from her face, so she began kicking at him and at that point he grabbed her left foot and kept biting her left foot. It seemed like an eternity to her, as he kept biting her and she kept screaming, but on one came.
The little dog, Target, was out the full length of the leash, off to the side and cowering, but as she kept screaming with no one coming to her aid, Target ran over and attacked the big dog’s legs which gave our victim a chance to catch her balance. But, unfortunately, the Doberman turned and attacked Target and left the little dog lying on the ground bleeding profusely. When the victim started toward the little dog and picked him up, the Doberman turned his attention back to her, lunged at her, hitting her in the chest and biting her in the breast and neck.
Finally, a gentleman came from the neighbor’s yard and shouted “the dog’s loose”, but he wouldn’t even attempt to come near the large dog. Shortly thereafter, another gentleman came from the same residence and took the dog back to the house.
Thankfully, little Target was taken right to the veterinarian and after surgery recovered from his wounds. The victim in this case had to have surgery on her right elbow because all of the nerves, tendons and arteries had been damaged during the attack. She had to have a second surgery on her left foot. She was told that it would take approximately a year for her arm to get back to normal, and she still has excessive pain that the medications don’t really alleviate.
The victim in this case sought the assistance of Attorney Richard D. Schuler and after much investigation and hard work, this case went to trial against the owner of the Doberman. Not only was Mr. Schuler successful in obtaining a verdict of $167,000.00, but since it was more than 25% in excess of the Offer of Judgment made in this case, the victim was entitled to be reimbursed for all attorney’s fees and costs. Also, the court determined that Mr. Schuler had proven that the relevant market required a contingency fee multiplier of two times the amount of the attorney’s fees due to the fact that it would be difficult to obtain competent counsel to represent the victim in this type of case and that counsel was not able to mitigate his risk of non-payment in this matter, but undertook the representation in any event.
After applying the contingency risk multiplier, the total award in this case, including attorney’s fees and costs, amounted to nearly $300,000.00.
