Due to the King County Animal Care & Control’s budget restraints and a focus on animal cruelty issues, dog bite victims are waiting months for a response from Animal Control.
Consequently,victims and neighbors suffer, wait and worry. As time goes by, wounds heal over to scars, people’s memories fade and neighbors move with their vicious dogs – making a claim for personal injuries difficult.
• In November, a Kent mother e-mailed Animal Care and Control about a Rottweiler that bit her 13-year-old son on the arm, but the agency didn’t dispatch the call until February this year, records show. By then, no dog fitting the description lived at the address.
• In October, a Bellevue woman e-mailed the agency, saying a neighbor’s dog had bitten her in the leg. Animal Care and Control contacted the dog owner nearly two months later. The owner had given away the dog on Craigslist, and the agency closed the case.
• In July last year, a father of a 1-year-old notified the agency of a pack of vicious dogs running loose near his Kent home. By the time an officer showed up in October, the dogs and owner couldn’t be found. Someone complained again in November about one of the dogs coming after him, and three months later, the agency issued a warning.
What are your legal rights?
Under Washington State law, if you have been innocently attacked by a vicious dog (whether on public property, your property or the dog owner’s property), the owner of the dog is responsible to pay for your medical bills and pain and suffering. The owner is strictly liable. Whether you had prior knowledge of the dog’s vicious is irrelevant.
Protect yourself and your family
You do not have to wait until Animal Care & Control responds. Instead you should contact a knowledgeable personal injury attorney that will immediately pursue your claim against the dog owner and his/her homeowner’s insurance company.
