Missouri Dog Bite Laws

What Happens When Your Bitten by a Dog?

Hi, I’m Josh Myers, attorney at Schultz & Myers. We’re a personal injury law firm here in St. Louis, Missouri. Today I want to answer a question we get a lot, which is what happens if you’re bitten by a dog?

The One Bite Rule

A lot of people come in, and they ask us about this “one bite rule” or what they’ve heard of before called a “one bite rule” , and in Missouri, there’s no such thing. It used to be the law in Missouri that we had to show the dog had some kind of dangerous propensities, or meaning a past history of aggression. Several years back, the law was completely rewritten, so now it is a case of what’s called strict liability.

Basically this means if you were bitten on public property, or if you’re on private property and as long as you were there lawfully, the owner of the dog is completely liable for the damages you suffered.

Dog Bite Case Process

So it’s pretty simple these days. If you’re bitten by someone else’s dog, they’re responsible for that. Of course the real key comes in determining how much money it takes to make up for the harms and the damages that you suffered, and that’s where our expertise comes in.

So I hope this helped answer some questions. If you’ve ever been bitten by a dog, and you’re looking for a personal injury lawyer, I certainly hope that you’ll give us a call and at least let us talk to you about your case. Our phone number’s easy to remember. Just remember the fours: (314) 444-4444.

By: Josh Myers

I got a call from a lady the other day who wanted to know how her medical bills were going to be paid after her injury.

Injury Law News brought to you by the S.E. Farris Law Firm.

I’m Spencer Farris and I represent injury victims in the state of Missouri. I get that kind of call a lot from folks who are worried about their rising medical bills and the daily mail that they get with another bill collector looking for payment. And this is what I typically tell them.

Medicare

Senior citizens and folks on social security disability are covered by Medicare and Medicare will pay the medical bills as they are incurred. However, Medicare gets part of their money back from your injury case at the end. Your lawyer will have to negotiate that for you because Medicare will want dollar for dollar on what they spend.

Medicaid

Children in Missouri who don’t have private health insurance, and some adults, are covered by Missouri Medicaid. And Medicaid also will pay Medical bills and, at the end of your lawsuit, they will expect to be repaid. However, a judge can reduce or totally eliminate your payback to Medicaid. You’ll need your lawyer to help you with that.

Private Insurance

The other group that frequently pays medical bills in Missouri is private insurance and private insurance will ask for repayment almost always. Unless they are a special plan, a self-funded union plan or something along those lines that is governed by federal law, they’re not entitled to reimbursement. The word that they will say is subrogation, which means they stand in your shoes and get to collect their money back from the person who hurt you. Make sure that your lawyer is well aware and willing to fight for you so that you don’t have to pay back the health insurance. And this isn’t cheating. You paid benefits to get the health insurance. You wrote a check every month. They shouldn’t get their money back just because they did what they promised to do.

No Insurance

Finally, there are a lot of folks that don’t have any health insurance. And in those situations, hospitals and doctors will treat you on what’s called a lien basis. Hospitals don’t have to see you unless you’re in an emergency. But, experienced trial lawyers can help you find a doctor who will treat you on a lien basis and will make sure that your doctor understands that they will get paid.

When you’ve been hurt, the most important thing is to feel better and not be worried about how you’re going to pay for your medical bills. Remember that a trial lawyer who cares about his clients will fight for you and fight to put money in your pocket, rather than spend it all on the health care that you wouldn’t have needed but for your injury. If you have questions about medical care or how to pay for it after an injury, call my office or reach us at the website at the bottom of the screen. I’m happy to visit with you without any cost or obligation and hopefully help put your mind at rest.

The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

If you’re a victim of a hit and run in Missouri your uninsured motorist coverage will protect you. And a Missouri auto accident attorney is who you need to hire to make sure that you collect from the insurance company and take care of all of your losses. You don’t need to know who hit you. They may not even need to touch your car in Missouri. If they swerve and cause you to wreck, your uninsured motor coverage is available to you and a Missouri accident attorney knows how to follow the law to get you your damages back. If I do my own plumbing at home and mess it up, I can call a professional plumber. He’ll come in – he may laugh at me – it may charge more, but he can fix it. But if you have a legal case and you don’t have an experienced Missouri auto accident attorney you can never get over that. You can never fix that problem. You get one shot to collect all of your damages and one shot to do it right. Over the years folks have come to me that tried to handle their case at the beginning because the insurance company the claim reps are very friendly and they want you to trust them. But at some point folks realize they can’t go it alone and they call me because they’re looking for a Missouri auto accident attorney. Sometimes I can help and sometimes I can’t, but it always works better if you call me, call an attorney immediately or as soon after a crash as you can. The longer the wait the harder it is for me as a Missouri auto accident attorney to do my job.  When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

In our modern mobile society, freight and passengers move by rail car every day, just at the same time you and your family are in your car, travelling the highways. And it’s inevitable that at the intersection there’s a potential for devastating collisions. We try to avoid that with crossing equipment and crossbars, but sometimes it doesn’t function properly. Sometimes it hasn’t been properly maintained, sometimes it simply doesn’t exist. If you’ve been injured, or a loved one has been killed at a train crossing, you owe it to yourself and to your family to hire a personal injury attorney who can investigate the causes of the collision and determine whether or not your rights should be protected.  Call 314-A-LAWYER today for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

You’ve been hurt and you’re angry. You’re not the kind of person who sues, but you want to know what the stages of a lawsuit are. Let’s talk about it.   Injury Law News, brought to you by The S.E. Farris Law Firm.   I’m Spencer Farris, a personal injury lawyer in St. Louis, Missouri, and partner at The S.E Farris Law Firm. People get hurt and call my office every day, thinking that we can get their case resolved in a matter of hours like they do on TV. But there are a lot of stages to a personal injury case, and I want to go through those with you. Before you think about a lawsuit, you need to think about taking care of yourself. If you’re hurt, get medical treatment. Follow your doctor’s instructions, go to your doctor visits, and take your medication. That’s important for two reasons. First of all, you won’t get better if you don’t do those things, and feeling better’s the most important part of recovering from an injury. From a legal perspective, you can’t recover your damages if you don’t document that you have been injured, and the way that you do that is taking the time to follow your doctor’s directions. Get the medical care that you need.  Almost as important as hiring good doctors is to hire a qualified attorney, someone who’s experienced in handling injury cases and someone that you want to work with. Remember that an injury case can take months or even a couple of years to get resolved, and you want to find someone that you don’t mind having a partnership with that will last throughout that time period. Stay in touch with your lawyer. Make sure that if you move or change phone numbers or change doctors your lawyer knows about it. When your doctor’s done treating you, it’s time for your lawyer to get to work gathering the medical records and the facts necessary to present your case. Most lawyers will then put together what’s called a claim packet or a negotiation packet. By this time your lawyer should have contacted the person at fault for your injury and their insurance company. Now, your lawyer presents the case to the insurance company and starts negotiations. Remember that most cases settle at this stage – better than half, at least. If the insurance company is reasonable and your lawyer does his job to present your case, you should be able to get the case settled. It doesn’t always work that way however, and if it doesn’t, you move to the next stage which is an actual lawsuit. We’re going to talk about that in the next video. In the meantime, if you have questions about handling a personal injury case or the stages, please feel free to call or contact my office at the website and the phone number at the bottom of the screen. We’re happy to visit with you at no cost or obligation and talk with you about your case, whether we represent you or not. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

When you’ve been in a crash with a drunk driver, you need a Missouri personal injury lawyer to protect your rights, because your insurance may come into play. His may not be enough, and you need someone that knows the law, and will pursue those cases aggressively. They’re not open-and-shut just because the other driver was drinking.

I remember a case, many years ago, where a drunk was aggressively driving, and racing someone else. Blew through a red light, and hit my client’s car in the side. The impact was devastating. His– when I first met the young man, his face didn’t even look like a human face, because of all the swelling, and all the injuries he sustained. But we were fortunate to be able to help him in that situation, and were very creative in finding enough coverage to try to help him put his life back together.

You wouldn’t think so, but a drunk driver in Missouri who’s hurt somebody with his first offense, even if it causes a death, may not go to prison, may get probation. Part of what civil law does, and what a Missouri personal injury lawyer does, is help hold these folks accountable for the damages they cause, make them pay for the beautiful vase that they’ve broken, or the beautiful life that they’ve destroyed. If you don’t hire a Missouri personal injury lawyer after you’ve been in a car crash, you’re at the insurance company’s mercy. And they are there – and they’re generating profits for their shareholders – not by paying folks like you who have been hurt, but by paying as little as possible on claims. They’ve got professionals on their side, and if you don’t have a Missouri personal injury lawyer fighting for you on your side, you’re going to take the crumbs that they feed you. When you’ve been hurt, and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office, and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case, if we’re successful for you.  Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

They call them man’s best friend, but sometimes dogs cause more harm than good. If you or a loved one has been bitten by a dog, there are a couple things that you need to do immediately to protect your rights. One is to contact the authorities, police department or animal control, and fill out a report. Another thing which is very important is to find out and identify the owner of the dog. It doesn’t do any good to call an attorney, it doesn’t do any good to call the police if you don’t know who owns the dog that bit you. If you or a loved one have been bitten by a dog, contact us, call us on the number on your screen, or visit us through the Internet. I’m happy to answer your questions without any cost or obligation. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

When you’ve been hurt whether it’s in a car or because you’ve gotten injured on someone’s property at that moment a Missouri personal injury lawyer is important to you and the Missouri law is important to you. But up until that time you weren’t even aware it existed and you’re always in the cross hairs in our state legislature. There hasn’t been a year gone by since the 22 years that I’ve been practicing that the Missouri legislature hasn’t had injury victims in it’s cross hairs. They want to get at the lawyers, but they do it by walking over folks like you, that have been hurt.

Unfortunately you don’t know your rights have been infringed upon, you don’t that you’ve been within the cross hairs of the legislature until you get hurt. But because of that you don’t know all the things you need to do to handle your case once you’ve been hurt and how the law has developed over the last several hundred years. And you need a Missouri personal injury lawyer to help guide you down the path and make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of by the insurance company for the folks that hurt you.  When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

Black Box Data

After a truck wreck, it’s important to gather the data from the black box or the data recorder. And a St. Louis truck accident lawyer will have the resources and know-how to get, not only to the scene, but to get permission to download or copy the information that’s on that data recorder so that they have it to present your case. In the data recorder there’s not infinite space, and what happens is, after a certain amount of time, the recorder starts to record again over the breaking, the speed, the other events that are on that data recorder. So it’s crucial to get that offloaded as quickly as possible. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out-of-pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office, and if we can help you we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case, if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris