Basic Primer on Dog Bite Claims in North Carolina

Dog bite claims in NC…wow!  That’s a pretty big topic to handle in a tiny blog post.  When writing in blog format, I’ve found it’s sort of a razor’s edge experience; it’s easy to do the topic a disservice by oversimplifying it, but it’s also easy to verbally vomit information all over a screen and overwhelm an audience.  Animal claims in general, and dog bite/attack claims specifically are a great example of this difficulty.  We’re talking about a huge amount of case law and some pretty complex legal issues.  But I want to write about it, so I’ll do my best to walk the edge…(please note there is a video version of this, too!)

There are essentially two paths down which you might pursue a dog bite claim in North Carolina:

• Vicious propensities
• General propensities

The elements for each are similar, but there are important, subtle differences.

VICIOUS PROPENSITIES

• Defendant was the owner or keeper of animal
• Animal caused injury/damage
• Animal was dangerous, vicious, mischievous, ferocious, OR one termed in law as possessing a vicious propensity
• Defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the vicious prop, character, or habits of the animal

GENERAL PROPENSITIES

• Defendant was the owner/keeper (as bove)
• Animal caused injury/damage
• Animal’s conduct SHOULD reasonably have been anticipated by defendant
• Defendant failed to exercised due care to prevent injury done by such reasonably anticipated conduct by the animal

I know, SOOOO many things to discuss, but let’s just pick out a few points:

These claims are technically not  negligence claims.  In theory, we have “strict liability” for dog bite claims.  Strict liability means that if your dog bites someone, you’re liable.  Period.  Sadly, it’s not that simple.

If you have a dog that is famous for his dangerous, vicious, (etc., above) behavior, then that might get you into the strict liability realm.  In other words, if you know about that behavior history, and the dog does that behavior resulting in injury, then you are probably on the hook.  That’s about as close to strict liability as we come.

The Health director can label dangerous dogs, and that creates specific rules for them.  In other words, if your dog attacks someone and causes serious injury (there are specific guidelines about those injuries necessary for this result) then the Health Director might label that dog as dangerous. The upshot of that is that gets you in the vicious propensities angle of attack.

In terms of the general propensities angle, the “reasonable person” standard is used to analyze the anticipated conduct and the injury caused thereby.  In other words, like a negligence claim, the judge/jury/finder of fact has to determine if a reasonable person would have anticipated the complained-of conduct and the injury that that conduct my cause.

For example: You might have a dog that jumps on people all the time.  He’s sweet and just licks people in the face, but he’s 100 lbs and is still subject to the laws of physics.   He knocks someone down and causes injury.  Well, we might argue that a “reasonable person” would anticipate that that sort of conduct would cause that injury, so as long as you were aware of that general propensity of being big and jumping on people, and a reasonable person would have anticipated this, then that claim might be viable.

Another interesting point of case law is that notice of dangerousness and propensities is imputed from owner to keeper and vice versa.  So if you are a dog sitter, watch out!  You might be on the hook even if you don’t know about this mutt.

Some other general information:

City’s can, but don’t have to, have more strict rules about keeping dogs confined, even “non-dangerous” ones.

Punitive damages can be available for dog bite claims!  As always, you have to prove liability first, then you  have to show malice or willful/wanton conduct.  Those damages are limited to3x compensatory OR $250k, whichever is greater.  That could make a huge difference in your case, and it’s worth exploring.

That was A LOT of stuff, I know.  Maybe in future posts I can go into more detail on some of those points, or maybe explore some other issues I didn’t have space to in here.  Anyway, I hope you find it useful.

Be safe!

Greetings, law fans! This little blog post is about the Burden of Proof in North Carolina civil claims (more particularly, auto injury claims).  This one is interesting because it has a few layers.

First, what does “burden of proof” mean in general?

Second, what is our burden of proof in NC personal injury law?

There is no Black’s Law Dictionary entry for Burden of Proof in general, so let me summarize…

Having the “burden of proof” means it is one parties’ responsibility to prove his case; it is not the other party’s responsibility to disprove the claimant’s case.

In NC injury law, as in most civil cases in America, the plaintiff (that’s the person who says he was injured by the other guy) has the burden of proof.  This means that means the plaintiff has to prove he was injured and is owed by the other guy.  The other guy (the defendant) has no burden of proof (in general), and if the plaintiff fails to meet his burden of proof, the defendant cannot be found liable.

Easy enough right? But what is our burden of proof in NC civil claims?  In other words, how  to we meet that burden of proving our case?   It is a standard known as “preponderance of evidence.”  Here’s a little snippet of the standard definition:

Black’s Law Dictionary: “as standard of proof in civil cases, is evidence which is of greater weight or more convincing than the evidence which is offered in opposition to it…”

In typical BLD fashion, that just makes it more confusing, right?

Let me break it down:

In order to prove your case, you must present evidence that beats any evidence against it.  By how much must it beat the other evidence?  Just a smidge!  The “greater weight” referred to in Black’s is just that…greater weight.  As long as you beat the other guy’s evidence by a smidge, a hair, a nose, or whatever you want to call it – as long as it is greater, you can win.  Later in BLD’s three paragraph definition, it states: “It is that degree of proof which is more probable than not.”  Now THAT makes it more clear!

EXAMPLE

• You have to prove your injury was caused by the defendant’s negligence
• Your doctor has to testify, generally, as to his opinion of that causation.
• In order for you to have a chance, the doc has to state that it is his opinion that it is “more likely than not” that your injury was caused by your accident.
• The doc DOES NOT have to say that it is was definitively caused by the accident

This issue hangs up a lot of people, because they see crime shows and they hear, “beyond a shadow of a doubt” as a measuring stick.  WE ONLY USE THAT STANDARD IN CRIMINAL CASES; WE DO NOT USE THAT STANDARD IN CIVIL CASES.

This is how OJ was able to be acquitted of the criminal charge of killing those folks, but found liable civilly for killing them; there was a different (lower) burden of proof for the civil claim which was more easily met.

Interesting stuff, huh?  Aren’t you glad you aren’t an attorney? Thanks for joining me again.  I hope you learned something useful.