Compensation for police dog bites

I just don't get then whole compensation thing I have no idea how the legal system works etc I do understand if you are injured and cannot work then you might need to claim for loss of earnings, but only if your workplace doesn't pay you your full salary for being off work. Anything else is just plain greed.

But as for using public money to make these huge payouts, is it just me or is this morally wrong and just goes to show how money grabbing and selfish we are as a nation?

If I were bitten by a police dog, who is just carrying out his job but I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I wouldn't be demanding a huge sum of money, or am I in the minority here??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12713723

Hmm, I thought the report was going to be about criminals who had been bitten by police dogs who were demanding compensation but these were just unfortunate people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My honest answer is, I don't know what I would do under those circumstances. Despite being a dog lover, if I was just minding my own business down on my allotment and a police dog bit me rather than the person it should have done, I wouldn't be very happy about it! I guess it depends on how severe the bite was as to whether I would be wanting compensation or not. A quick nip and I would let it go. As a doctor, my dad carried out numerous operations to repair damage done by dog bites. If I needed to undergo an operation because of the bite, needed time off work and was in pain, I wouldn't be looking to get rich from it but I would want to be reimbursed for loss of earnings (and the fortune I would have to pay for the hospital car park )

I don't think it's wrong. If you handle dogs who are trained to bite then you need to be responsible for them and their actions, whether you're police or not, but sadly mistakes do happen. When it's a hugely traumatic and life-altering experience, and it has happened through no fault of your own, I'd say it would be very unfair to get nothing in the way of compensation. The guy saying that he wants £10,000 rather than what he was offered sounds like he's just trying it on though, I'd say £4000 is a lot but £10,000 is really a lot.

I wonder if he had any influence from certain 'ambulance chaser' solicitors, advising him that his claim would be worth substancially more.

I haven't read the article, as the BBC site always takes ages to load , but from what others have said, I would say that I wouldn't expect to be compensated if I were a criminal and were bitten by a police dog while undertaking some wrongdoing!

However, if I were an innocent person, simply going about my daily business, and was bitten I would be pretty peeved to say the least! As Majuka has said, if it were a little nip and didn't break the skin for example, then I would possibly let it go with an apology from the handler, but if it were a severe bite, resulting in hospital treatment, time off work and lots of pain, then I would expect to receive (at least) my loss of earnings.

As has already been said, police dogs are trained to bite and their handlers need to be competent in handling them, knowing when to let them loose and when it may not be safe to do so. The onus is on the handler not to put his dog (or the general public) in a situation where the wrong person could be bitten.

I think the pensioner who has been offered £4000 but wants more is just chancing it. Yes, he was injured but surely the police doing their job is more important and he has been offered compensation. £4000 more than covers any expenses caused by the injury.

In a lot of cases I think we sue people too much these days. That said, my husband is suing a charity at the moment over an incident where they left a sign in a place they'd been told was dangerous and which also goes against some traffic regulations and he tripped over it (he's blind, but it was in a place at the bottom of steps where he couldn't find it). He needed major knee surgery and will get arthritis early as a result. At first he thought it was just one of those things and he has to accept that being blind you fall over stuff but then decided it was stupid placing and a point needed to be made.

It's a difficult one all round really.

Looking at the local TV news over the weekend I noticed a police dog wearing a muzzle at the Lib Dem conference in Sheffield.

If there was any trouble I would have thought the dogs would be better with fully functioning teeth

The one I loved was the guy who wanted 10 grand but had got a bottle of Baileys as a sorry token... the Baileys just struck me as being incredibly, wonderfully random.

Looking at the local TV news over the weekend I noticed a police dog wearing a muzzle at the Lib Dem conference in Sheffield.

If there was any trouble I would have thought the dogs would be better with fully functioning teeth

Have you ever got head butted by a police dog wearing a muzzle?

I think you may think differently if you had.

Not all police dogs are muzzle trained as many are not strong enough mentally to do this.

The muzzles contain a bite bar which is in the dogs teeth and a very strong dog who is frustrated at not being able to bite a person can cause serious injury as their muzzles are NOT cloth or plastic but leather and metal!

This avoiid a person being bitten.

Ok, this could get boring but.... personal injury claims are broken down into two seperate parts - general damages - which is the money for pain, suffering and loss of amenity and special damages - which is for actual financial losses, and includes both past and future losses.

General damages are in the UK actually quite low - they are determined by pre-existing case law and by something known as the Judicial Studies Guidelines which sets out a "tarif" for types and severity of injuries... so for a dog bite you'd be looking at the location of the injury, the severity of the scaring (the age and gender of the victim is a factor here too). There may also be psychological injury in this head of claim - say a child was bitten and has developed a major phobia of dogs which affects their day to day life.

In Special damages you have things like loss of earnings, future plastic surgery costs, psychological treatment costs, personal and domestic care. It is the special damages claims that can really push the damages up... say someone has an accident which results in a brain injury and they will never hold down a full time job, will require a carer to look after them 24/7 well this would be paid out by the insurers of the Defendant rather than it having to be paid by the state (ie you and me).

It would be impossible to state whether anyone persons award was excessive or unreasonable without reading the medical evidence and seeing the schedule of loss which would detail all the past and future financial loss. To simply second guess without knowing the circumstances is not really fair.