Your Personal Injury Lawyers
Recovering Damages in Toronto Dog Bite Cases
If someone else’s dog injured you in a Toronto dog attack, you might be entitled to damages. General damages are for pain and suffering, which includes loss of enjoyment of life and the ability to continue doing one’s daily activities such as housekeeping, home maintenance, and leisure activities.
Also, general damages include whether one is able to continue with their employment activities and other forms of remuneration. Special damages deal with out-of-pocket expenses and lost income as well as the future care claims one might have.
To understand the damages available in your Toronto dog bite case, it is important to consult with an experienced Toronto dog bite lawyer as soon as possible. A knowledgeable attorney can build a claim to help obtain a successful result on behalf of their client.
Contributory Negligence
If a person is partially at fault, that is considered contributory negligence. The greater the injury, the more a person should be compensated. The purpose of tort law in Toronto is to put the person back in the position that they were in before the accident.
In this case, the amount of damages that a plaintiff would receive in their Toronto dog bite case would be reduced accordingly based on the percentage of their own portion of fault.
Caps on Damages
There are caps on damages in Toronto dog bite cases. The Supreme Court of Canada fixed general damages in 1978 at $100,000, and that has been indexed now to the present. The cap on damages now is roughly $360,000 in 2017.
The cap is low at $360,000.00. Each case is supposed to be assessed individually and objectively, and that cannot happen in the case of a really severe injury with such a low cap. However, the cap on dog attack damages in Toronto should have less impact, because dog attack damages are not likely to come close to the cap in the typical dog attack case, which might involve a bite mark and some PTSD.
This means that if a person attacked by a dog somehow sustained a severe brain injury and became comatose or became quadriplegic, a person could expect to receive no more than $360,000 for pain and suffering. There is no cap on special damages, but there is a very hard cap on general damages in a Toronto dog bite case.
The caps are based on the rationale of the Supreme Court of Canada. The rationale provided is that no amount of money can compensate someone where they have a severe brain injury that leaves them in a vegetative state, and it is a matter of fairness to the defendant. For example, if a person is in that state, who is to say whether there life is worth $10 million, $20 million, $100 million, et cetera.
Understanding the Insurance Policy
Every attack is unique, and the ability to obtain damages for a Toronto dog bite case depends on whether there is insurance. Therefore, it is important right from the outset to determine whether the dog owner has insurance through a homeowner’s policy or general liability policy, because if they do not have insurance, the chances of recovery are very, very low.
