Circumstances of accident
Our client was delivering a parcel, within the course of his employment, to the defender’s house. Our client left the parcel with the defender’s neighbour and put a delivery note through the defender’s letterbox. Suddenly and without warning the defender’s dog bit our client’s finger and would not let go. Our client pulled his finger from the dog’s mouth and suffered injury as a result.
Our client suffered a laceration to his left ring finger and required a dressing and stitches following this accident.
The Animals Act (Scotland) 1987 applied in the circumstances and consequently, the case was decided on a strict liability basis, which meant that we had to prove that the defender was the “Keeper” of the dog and that the defender’s dog had bitten our client and caused his injuries.
How we helped our client
We raised court proceedings against the owner of the dog, the defender. They claimed that the accident could not have happened because they had a letterbox cage installed over their door, meaning that it would be impossible for their dog to have bitten our client.
We undertook a number of investigations which included ingathering our client’s medical and employment records. There were no eyewitnesses to the incident, but the contemporaneous evidence corroborated the details of our client’s account of what happened.
Settlement
At the final hearing, we successfully proved that the accident occurred as our client had alleged. The defender was therefore found liable.
We secured £2,000 for our client which covered his injury and his loss of earnings stemming from the accident.
