On August 12, 2013, our 46-year-old client was walking her dog in her Riverside neighborhood near the intersection of 6th Street and Locust Street. She was careful to avoid a neighbor’s house where the owner kept two vicious American Bull Terriers—commonly known as pit bulls—behind a weak wooden fence in his front yard. One of the dogs was four months old while the other one was a massive two-year-old weighing 90 pounds. Other people also knew to avoid this house because the aggressive pit bulls would push their heads through spaces in the fence slats while barking aggressively and try to escape when anyone passed by.
As our client started into the intersection, she heard growling and discovered the younger pit bull had escaped and was headed toward her. She tried to run across the street to a neighbor’s house. Halfway across the intersection, she heard a chain hitting the pavement. Terrified, she turned to see the adult pit bull sprinting toward her, his broken chain thumping against the road.
Realizing she was not going to make it to safety, our client scooped up her little dog and screamed for someone to call 911. The adult pit bull lunged and bit into our client’s arm, pushing her to the ground. The younger dog grabbed onto her head, biting and shaking it. Meanwhile, the older dog dug into the right side of our client’s face, ripping her right cheek off. Her small dog was also injured, but thankfully he survived.
Our Client Suffers Long-Term Injuries That Changed Her Life Forever
Besides the damage to her cheek, our client suffered puncture wounds to her head, breast, and arm, permanent damage to her right eye and retina, and an ACL injury to her knee. When she was taken to the emergency room, the doctor was able to sew her cheek back on and repair the puncture wound damages before sending her home.
This was not the end of our client’s medical treatment, which is ongoing. She had surgery to repair the ACL tear and months of physical therapy. She still needs one or more cosmetic surgeries to reduce the permanent scarring on her right cheek and eye surgery to restore some of the peripheral and asymmetrical vision loss in her right eye.
Unfortunately, the dog bite to our client’s right arm caused significant nerve damage that cannot be repaired. It prevents her from making a fist or bending her pinkie and ring fingers, and her arm often goes numb when she tries to use it, making her right hand almost useless.
Our client was right-handed, and the loss of the use of this hand has changed her life. Prior to the dog attack, our client cleaned houses for a living. However, our client has been unable to continue to do the same job since her attack. Because she lived paycheck to paycheck, she could not afford to pay the rent for the house where she lived with her adult son—causing them the trauma of being evicted and becoming homeless. Until this case could be resolved, our client was forced to live with family and friends.
Steinberg Injury Lawyers Used Social Media to Maximize Our Client’s Settlement
When the legal team at Steinberg Injury Lawyers began representing our client, they knew that their client needed the settlement proceeds desperately. Peter Steinberg immediately searched for the dog owner’s Facebook page where he found a huge collection of pictures of dogs he had been breeding and the advertisements for their sale. Thankfully, he printed out all this information.
Although the dog owner’s liability and our client’s life-altering injuries were clear, the owner’s insurance company would not settle the case. Peter Steinberg hoped that taking the dog owner’s deposition would move the case to a speedy resolution, and his hunch was right. Just before his deposition, he went onto his Facebook page where he discovered all the pictures and advertisements for the sale of pit bulls had been removed. When the dog owner claimed the pit bulls that attacked our client were family pets at his deposition, Peter Steinberg pulled out the Facebook pages he had printed out and caught the dog owner multiple times in his lies.
Shortly after this deposition, the legal team at Steinberg Injury Lawyers were able to settle this case for our client for the maximum policy limit of $300,000. While this will never bring back the use of her hand or restore her vision, this settlement has enabled our client to rent a new home and to go forward with her life.
Were you injured in a dog bite attack? Contact us at 800-989-6385 or start an online chat to schedule a free consultation.
