New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

A family in Illinois is finding out just how hard an insurer will try to avoid having to pay out in a dog bite incident. The insurer, Illinois Farmers Insurance has filed suit this week to avoid paying compensation to the victim of a dog bite attack.

The dog bite here occurred in July last year. The victim Chloe Pluger was bitten by a dog belonging to Gary and Sharon Lindstrom. Chloe's father Matthew Pluger filed a lawsuit against the Lindstroms. The lawsuit sought to recover compensation for injuries that Chloe suffered in the dog bite attack. However, Farmer’s Insurance refused to cover the injuries. 

The basis for this was that Chloe's mother had been dating Lindstrom's son when the dog bite occurred. The insurer alleged that for months before the dog bit Chloe, and for two weeks after the dog bite, they had all been residing in the same house belonging to the Lindstroms. According to the insurer, their dog bite policy specifically excludes members of the same household from liability.

To those not familiar with the kind of measures that insurers can adopt to avoid having to pay out compensation to injured victims, this means that the Farmer's policy excludes Chloe because she had been living at the Lindstrom's residence when the attack occurred.

As this case shows, you can expect an insurance company to try everything possible to avoid having to pay out compensation even in a simple dog bite case where liability is apparent.   I don't know much about the injuries that Chloe suffered here, but in case of a severe dog bite, victims may be looking at heavy medical expenses that could leave them in severe financial distress if the insurer refuses to pay out.

Scott Grossman is a dog bite attorney in New Jersey representing victims of dog bites in Monmouth, Ocean, Passaic, and Bergen Counties, and across the state of New Jersey.

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Officials in Holland Township in Huntingdon County have delayed a vote on whether to ban wolf hybrid dogs. The ban was proposed after 6 wolf dogs from a pack of 14 escaped from their owner’s property in September. Under the proposal, the owner will be given 30 days time to remove his wolf dogs from Holland Township, or face fines.

On September 6^th, the wolf dogs escaped through what police believe was a damaged fence. It was the fourth time this year that some of the dogs have escaped from the owner Cliff Zager’s home. The dogs didn’t attack any people. Of the 6 dogs that escaped, five were found within a few hours, while the fifth returned home a few days later. One of the dogs however, killed a neighbor’s cat.

Township authorities have delayed a vote while they decide what to do. Opinion is mixed. There have been locals speaking in favor of allowing the dogs to stay because they are not more dangerous than other dog breeds. However, Cliff Zager’s neighbors are justifiably anxious about another escape. The dogs have escaped 4 times thus far, and neighbors are worried that their children could be at risk from an attack. Several local residents want the animals banned from Holland Township.

Wolf dogs are a hybrid derived from mating a dog and a wolf. Typically, these kinds of hybrids can need more training and socialization. Much of the challenge in raising a wolf dog can depend on how much percentage of “wolf” is in the genes. Generally, the more wolf percentage the dog has, the more aggressive it may be. According to experts, wolf dogs tend to be good at escaping confined surroundings, because they need exposure to different situations and people. They may also have several features that may differentiate them from “regular” dogs. For instance, wolf dogs may not be as eager to please as a regular dog.

As of now, there is no approved Rabies vaccine for wolf dogs. What that means is that if a wolf dog is involved in a bite incident, it can be confiscated or euthanized even if it has been vaccinated properly.

As a New Jersey dog bite lawyer, I believe that the safety of a community and its children should be placed above all else.  

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As a New Jersey dog bite lawyer, I often see how victims are subjected to blame and accusations of negligence or even aggression, when they have been subjected to a vicious attack by a dog. While I admit that there may be cases of provoked dog attacks, very often these attacks can happen with little provocation.

A 5-year-old girl in Plymouth, Pennsylvania is looking at spending several weeks in hospital after serious throat injuries in a dog bite attack. The girl was bitten at the Maple Acre Farms establishment by a German Shepherd that belonged to the proprietor of the establishment. The dog was apparently unleashed, and walking about the property freely. The girl was bitten on the neck, and left with serious injuries. She suffered severe damage to her vocal chords, a punctured larynx and has also undergone a tracheotomy. This little girl is currently hooked on to a ventilator.

The dog owner has admitted to police that his dog had been involved in bite attacks earlier. In fact, records show that the dog has bitten people on at least three previous occasions. In the most recent attack, the dog ended up almost biting off the victim’s ear.

There seems to have been nothing that the little girl here did to provoke an attack. She had seen the dog on previous visits to the property, and had even petted it earlier.  Her mother says they had no reason to believe the dog could turn vicious, because it was walking about freely, and unleashed.  They had no way of knowing that the dog had been involved in other attacks before.

This little girl is looking at not just up to a month in hospital, undergoing extensive treatment for her mutilated throat and neck, but also a lifetime of trauma and fear because of this attack. In New Jersey, I often find that we are too quick to blame victims of dog bites without knowing all the facts. Many times, dogs that are involved in bite attacks have been involved in attacks earlier, and owners have failed to leash their dogs properly.  While no one is blaming the dog here, to any New Jersey dog bite lawyer, it would seem that the owner of the German Shepard was extremely negligent in letting a dog with a history of aggression walk about freely, and unleashed.

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