According to Michigan law, if a dog bites a victim, the dog's owner is strictly liable for the full amount of the injury caused by the dog. Here, is how an experienced dog bite lawyer, sitting as a case evaluator for the Wayne County Mediation Tribunal, would assess how much the Michigan dog bite case is worth. The assessment looks at the damages a victim may be able to recover in a dog bite case could include:
Medical Expenses - A victim should be fully compensated for all past, present and future medical bills resulting from the injury. The costs of emergency medical treatment, hospitalization, and rehabilitation care may several thousand dollars. In more serious cases, such as those involving loss of a limb, nerve damage, a person may require prosthetic, surgery or physical therapy, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. If a dog bite resulted in permanent scarring, the care may involve cosmetic surgery, which would significantly increase medical bills. Some medical bills would be known and others such as future medical bills would be assessed by future medical expense care plan.
Lost Wages - If a victim is unable to work due to the dog bite, while recovering from the injury, they should be fully compensated for the lost wages they would have earned but for the dog bite. In a hypothetical example, say a victim earned $30,000 per year, and they were unable to work for two months, the lost wages would translate into a claim of $5000.
Loss of Earning Capacity or future earnings - If an injury resulted in a temporary or permanent disability that affected a victim's ability to continue the same work, they should be able to recover compensation for the loss of earning capacity, which they would have earned during the period of recovery or throughout the rest of their life. If the person in the example above was permanently disabled and only able to return to work in a different job accommodating the disability, resulting in a reduction of their wages to $20,000 per year, this would result in an annual loss of $10,000, and over a period of 30 years, this would add up to $300,000.
Personal Property damage - A victim could be compensated for any damage to their clothing, jewelry, the items they were carrying, or any other personal property. For example, if a dog bite caused a person to clothes to be torn, a purse to be ripped, and an expensive necklace to be destroyed, they may be able to recover thousands of dollars for the replacement value of the damaged property.
Pain and suffering – A victim’s physical pain, suffering and emotional injury, is difficult to quantify in dollar amount, but a victim may experience, these damages can have a significant effect on a person's quality of life. A victim's personal relationships may be affected by scarring, or they may have difficulty sleeping, and they may experience temporarily or permanent pain or discomfort, which affect the victim’s ability to return to their normal life. Because of these changes in a victim’s life, the pain and suffering damages may be valued in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Usually a personal injury lawyer, uses a per diem segmental analysis to determine pain and suffering amount of money to fully and adequately pay damages. As such, the pain and suffering compensation for a victim can be rationalized based on a victim’s injury--hour-by-hour, day-by-day and year-by-year. In other words, a victim’s pain and suffering compensation can be quantified on a daily or hourly amount over the period the victim is expected to suffer. The annual, daily rate, and hourly rate would depend on the severity of the injury. Contact The Joseph Dedvukaj Firm today at 248-352-2110 or toll free at 866-HIRE-JOE for a 100% free consultation with an experienced dog attack lawyer.
