Animal Injury

[ATCinWI]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Wisconsin

My MIL drops her dog (black lab) off at a dog day-care/boarding place occasionally. Recently, the dog received a pretty serious cut to her abdomen which required several stitches while under their supervision. The vet bill was about $300. How much liability does the doggy-day-care place have?

 

[Antigone*]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Wisconsin

My MIL drops her dog (black lab) off at a dog day-care/boarding place occasionally. Recently, the dog received a pretty serious cut to her abdomen which required several stitches while under their supervision. The vet bill was about $300. How much liability does the doggy-day-care place have?

What does her contract with the doggie day care say? Did she ask them?

 

[justalayman]

how the dog was cut can make a lot of difference so, how did the dog get cut?

 

[ATCinWI]

They business says that they do not know how the dog got cut, but they noticed it while they were bringing her back in from their play yard outside. I don't believe any other animals were involved.

I don't know what her contract says, but it's probably reasonable to assume she signed a clause that they're not responsible for injury to the dog, etc... but I'm not familiar with where their liability exists in the case of negligence, or even if it could be considered negligent if the dog was injured in their care.

 

[justalayman]

without some reasonable guess as to what caused the cut, it gets hard to win.

as an example: If it was a piece of sharp metal about the yard and they knew or should have known about it, there is liability. If it was such that there was no reason they should have known about it, there is no liability.

Without knowing how it got cut, it is really difficult to show liability and since the plaintiff has the duty to prove their case, you will not win without proving liability. Mere possession of the dog and it being injured is generally not enough to win such a case.

 

[ATCinWI]

If something like this were to happen in the future, would it be reasonable to have the local police come to inspect the place and get a police report?

 

[justalayman]

I doubt the police would respond to such a situation. It involves civil liability so the cops really have nothing to do there.