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This situation exactly happened to me.... Posted by Dan [Email] (#2459) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Dan) on Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:57:32 In Reply to: Dog hits car - owners fault?, George, Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:21:54 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
About 4 years ago, when I lived in LA, a large dog ran into the side of my car... denting my car and breaking the side light. I was only going 25MPH at the time since I was accelerating from a stop sign. I got out of the car and I couldn't find the owner! In LA there is a leash law, but this dog broke out of his cage. Finally, a person comes out of the house and tells me that the dog is her neighbor's dog. I knock on her door and she comes flying out when she sees her dog in the street. She immediately gathers her dog into a mini van with the help of her son and leaves me standing there wondering what happened. The course of these events happened within 5 minutes. I call the police and tell them that a dog ran into my car, but they wouldn't come out unless someone was hurt. I go to the vets office to make sure the dog was alright and I ended up talking with the owner. She admitted her son's dog gets loose all the time and she would make fix this situation.
I call my insurance company and report the incident. My insurance company contacts the lady's homeowners insurance and we each give our version of events. The lady blamed me for hitting her dog! She claimed her son's friend saw me speeding through the neighborhood. What's insane is that I had pictures proving the dog ran into my car. The damage of car was $1,500. My insurance company told me to pay a deductible ($250) to fix the car. They refused to provide money for a rental car since the case was ongoing (my car was in the shop for two weeks). Luckily I found a body shop that gave a free loaner car.
It turns out that my insurance company determined I was not at fault, but they would not pursue the case with the woman's insurance company since she denied fault. In addition, my claim adjusted claimed they do not pursue cases against accidents with people or animals. He recommended that I had the option of recovering my deductible fees in small claims court, but he warned me that I was opening a can of worms. He claimed that small claims judges were unpredictable and there was a chance the dog owner would file a countersuit. Even though I had the leash law and pictures of the damage, the insurance company did not think I would win. I decided to bite the deductible.
posted by 72.23.9...
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