Questions To Consider When Filing A Dog Bite Lawsuit In Kansas
Being bitten by a dog can have a huge impact on your life, but there are tools that can help you recover. A dog bite lawsuit can help your get quite a bit of financial compensation for your troubles, but you will need to make sure that you thoroughly research the laws of your state. Here are some of the most critical questions that you will need to ask when it comes to figuring out how dog bite lawsuits work in Kansas:
What is the statute of limitations for a dog bite in Kansas?
If you were bitten by a dog (or received any sort of personal injury), then you will need to file within 2 years of the incident. If you fail to do so, then your case could be dismissed outright. However, there are some very specific circumstances that could allow you to get an extension.
For example, if you were to be bitten and infected with a disease that didn't adversely impact your life until years later, then you may be able to get an extension through the discovery rule. As the name would suggest, this rule allows you to file relative to the date of the discovery of your injury, rather than relative to the date that the injury originally occurred on. However, since most dog bite injuries tend to present themselves immediately rather than after a number of years, your case would need to be rather exceptional to meet this criteria.
How can comparative negligence affect your case?
In dog bite lawsuits (and personal injury lawsuits in general), comparative negligence can play an absolutely crucial role in the legal proceedings. If things don't go your way, then comparative negligence could end up preventing you from seeing a single dime.
To be more specific, comparative negligence is the idea that level of responsibility should be taken into account when determining how the damages should be paid out. If the plaintiff was partially responsible for their own injuries, then they should be punished accordingly and shouldn't be allowed to take money from the defense. Some states are very harsh when it comes to comparative negligence, while others are much more lenient.
Kansas is pretty much exactly in the middle, allowing a fair bit of leniency if you did not have the majority of the responsibility, but punishing you heavily if you did have the majority. The line is drawn at 50%, so if the court thinks that you were less than 50% to blame, then you won't be punished too heavily. However, if you were 50% or more responsible, then you will be awarded no damages whatsoever.
To elaborate on how punishments work if you were less than 50% responsible, your damages will be reduced proportionally. If you were 10% responsible, then you will only get 90% of the money that you asked for. Contact a lawyer like one from The Kirbo Law Firm for more information.