Indiana does not simply make dog owners pay. Which rule applies to you depends on why you were there, and most people are surprised by the answer.
If you were a government employee, or otherwise authorised to be on the property performing your job, the owner is strictly liable for your bite injuries as long as you did not provoke the dog. If you were an ordinary citizen - a neighbour, a guest, somebody walking past - you have to prove the owner was negligent in failing to confine or restrain it. Same bite, entirely different case.
01
On the negligence route Indiana follows a 'one-bite' standard: it generally has to be shown that the dog had bitten someone before, or had otherwise exhibited a dangerous propensity, and that the owner knew about it. Establishing that knowledge is the case. Indiana law also requires owners to take reasonable care to protect even trespassers from a dog known to be dangerous.
02
Scarring and disfigurement, which is frequently the lasting one. Lacerations. Torn muscles, tendons and ligaments. Haemorrhaging, blood loss and subsequent shock. Crush injuries. And psychological trauma - night terrors, agoraphobia, lasting fear - which insurers treat as soft and which changes how children in particular live afterwards.
03
Large animals cause serious harm without ever closing their jaws, by jumping up or knocking somebody over. Older people and small children are hurt this way regularly, and the claim is not weaker for the absence of a puncture wound.
04
Establish who owns the animal if you possibly can. Cellphone photographs of the dog and the location, and the names of anyone who saw it, turn out to be decisive far more often than people expect, and both evaporate quickly. Then get medical attention: bite wounds carry a real infection risk that gets underestimated because the wound looks small.
05
State Farm ranked Indiana 19th highest among the fifty states for dog injury claims in 2019, receiving 326 claims in the state and paying out $13.42 million on them. A common claim, which is not at all the same thing as a simple one.
The same order every time, because most of the costly mistakes in injury work come from doing step four before step two.
A phone call, in your own words, in whatever order it comes out. You do not need the police report in front of you and you do not need to have it organised. If the answer is that you probably do not need a lawyer, you get told that on the first call, and it still costs nothing.
The firm's published standard is that you should only hire it if it can put you in a better position than you would be in on your own. That is why the first conversation is a conversation rather than a sales call, and why some of them end with a recommendation to do nothing.
Records, bills, wage information, photographs, witness accounts, and whatever the other side has already put in writing. Meanwhile the firm helps process health and auto medical-payment benefits at no charge, which is usually the part quietly bleeding money while everyone waits.
Every offer is passed to you as it arrives, with a straight assessment of whether it is fair and reasonable. Nothing settles without your permission. If the number will not move, the file gets prepared for trial rather than argued about indefinitely.
This is the most common reason people never call, and it usually rests on a misunderstanding: these claims are typically met by a homeowner's or renter's insurance policy rather than out of somebody's savings. Worth understanding before deciding against it.
Then the negligence route is harder, but 'dangerous propensity' is broader than a previous bite - prior lunging, snapping, or a history the owner knew about can all matter. It is fact-specific, which is a real answer rather than an evasion.
Practically, yes. Scarring on a child, and the psychological aftermath, are assessed differently to the same injury on an adult, and both tend to be badly undervalued in a first offer.
It can matter enormously - it is what decides which of Indiana's two tiers applies to you. Why you were there is one of the first things worth establishing.
Indiana sets time limits that vary with the claim. This page will not print a figure. Call and ask early.
Property holders are meant to keep their premises reasonably safe. When they do not, the argument is rarely about whether you fell - it is about whether they should have seen it coming.
Personal injury is not one of the things this firm does. Since 1974 it has been the only thing it does, which means nobody here is fitting your claim in between a house closing and a divorce.
There is no sufficient remedy for a life taken by somebody's mistake. What is available is an answer about what happened, and a recovery that stops the loss from also becoming a financial collapse.
The rest of the practice is on the practice areas index. If you would rather not take any of this on description alone, the admissions and memberships are all checkable against their sources, and the questions people actually ask cover the process before you speak to anyone.
The first conversation is free and puts you under no obligation. Bring the report, the photographs, the letter from the insurer, or nothing at all.
Contacting Cooke Law Firm or Cooke Law Firm does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Please do not send confidential information until a written engagement is in place. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.