Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
Person gets bit by a dog.
Person sustains objective injury (cuts, lacerations, stitches, sutures, or even worse)
Person sustains damages and/or quantifiable loss from said dog bite injury.
Person retains a personal injury lawyer.
Person wins a judgment or settles their case outside of Court.
Person cashes in their settlement cheque.
It all sounds pretty easy….
But it’s not.
The two most difficult legal concepts for dog attack victims to grasp in a dog attack case is insurance coverage; along with the OHIP Subrogated Claim. Both concepts are not unique to dog attack cases, however, they play out in a unique way compared to other personal injury cases.
Let’s start with the idea of insurance coverage for a dog attack case.
Assume that the dog owner is either:
a) Homeless without assets
b) Not homeless, but living off Ontario Works or ODSP and residing in public housing
c) Resides in a rental apartment without any rental coverage
d) Is visiting Canada from a foreign country, and brought their dog along for the visit
e) The dog owner cannot be tracked down by Animal Control, the Plaintiff, Neighbours or Witnesses to the Dog Attack
In all of these examples, finding insurance coverage will prove to be very difficult. Having insurance coverage attach to a dog owner/defendant is very important in order for the Plaintiff to achieve compensation. A Plaintiff has to remember that you cannot get blood from a stone. Suing a party who is destitute, without assets, or unknown; will not achieve any meaningful monetary results. A Plaintiff can secure a Judgment against a person without assets. But, if the Defendant cannot satisfy that Judgment, then what good is that to a Plaintiff if their goal is to get compensation for their injuries. If the Plaintiff’s goal is achieving civil justice, then that’s a different conversation. But all civil justice will achieve is securing a monetary judgment upon which you cannot collect because the Defendant is, for lack of a better term, broke! The Judgment is simply just a piece of paper. The Defendant does not go to jail because they cannot pay out on a civil judgment in a personal injury case. Nor can a Judge order that a Defendant pay back services in kind in order to pay off the value of the Judgment; meaning; the Judge cannot for the Defendant to do odd jobs for the Plaintiff in order to pay off the debt owing. That’s not how our civil courts work for personal injury cases.
