Dog Bites

• Bites – These types of injuries include puncture wounds or tears within your flesh. A dog’s long canines can sink deeply into the victim’s body and an aggressive dog can shake their head to deal even more damage. Bites are often paired with scratches as well.
• Facial Scars – The most common injury from a dog bite is facial scars. Dogs tend to go for the face, lips, nose, and cheeks. Approximately 44,000 facial injuries are treated in hospitals yearly around the United States. Facial scars can be disfiguring, leaving the victim with a lifelong physical and emotional aftermath.
• Head or Brain Injury – Bigger breeds may be able to clamp down on a victim’s head causing injuries as minor as a bump on the head to as serious as a fractured skull. Also, getting knocked down when fending off an attack can also lead to you to falling and hitting your head, subsequently causing brain damage.
• Crushed or Broken Bones – Some breed of dogs have enough power in their jaws to crush bones like the radius and ulna in your forearm. If by chance you are knocked down or trying to run away from a dog, one bad fall can also break a bone.

• Physical and Emotional Injury – It is not uncommon for victims of dog bites to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. A dog attack can leave children and adults fearing dogs for the rest of their lives, which can place unwanted stress on them and others when around dogs.
• Rabies – This disease can be fatal to both dogs and humans if not treated. The virus is transmitted through saliva and attacks the brain and nervous system. Victims of a dog bite must seek medical attention immediately!
• Death – A wrongful death can occur because of any of the injuries listed above, and in rare circumstances, due to the dog itself. A 2018 study issued by DogsBite.org found that 35 dog breeds contributed to 433 deaths over a 13-year period with pit bulls accounting for 66% of those deaths.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of a dog attack and bite, it is in your best interests to contact Ramos James Law, PLLC, immediately. If you have lost someone because of a dog bite, the spouse, children, or parents of the deceased may be entitled to pursue a wrongful death claim.

Courts have used the Restatement of Torts section 509, adopting the one bite rule that focuses on whether the owner knew or should have known that their dog may bite, and whether the owner took all of the necessary precautions to try to prevent the bite from occurring based on that knowledge.
Courts determine this by checking:

• If the dog owner knew that the dog had acted aggressively or had bitten someone before.
• If the dog owner was negligent by not securing or controlling the dog to prevent the bite from occurring, and that this negligence caused injury to someone.

In order to recover damages under this Texas law, you will have to prove that the owner knew their dog was aggressive or had bitten before, or show that the owner failed to restrain their dog, a type of negligence that may have caused the bite.

A bite isn’t the only way a dog can injure you. If, for example, a large dog runs past you and knocks you off of your feet, you can also claim damages for injuries received as a result of the owner’s negligence.