Dog Bite Injury Lawyer in Atlanta, GA Injuries, Evidence and Liability

The one sentence most claims here turn on

O.C.G.A. 51-2-7 reaches a person who owns or keeps a vicious or dangerous animal and who, by careless management or by allowing the animal to go at liberty, causes injury to someone who did not provoke it. Read the verb. The owner may be liable. That word arrived in a 1985 amendment, and the Supreme Court of Georgia has explained it was put there to make clear the standard is negligence, not strict liability. Nothing in this state presumes a dog is dangerous. The law starts from the opposite assumption, for every breed, and asks the injured person to prove the animal's deviation from it.

The second sentence, worth more than the first

The same 1985 amendment bolted a shortcut onto the statute. In proving vicious propensity, it says, it is sufficient to show that the animal was required to be at heel or on a leash by an ordinance of a city, county, or consolidated government. The animal also has to have been off heel and off leash at the time of the occurrence. Two carve-outs follow, one for domesticated fowl including roosters with spurs and one for domesticated livestock. Neither reaches a dog. That single sentence turns the hardest element of the case into a records question about which restraint rule governed one address.

Fulton's leash rule, in the words it uses

The county's animal control article makes it unlawful for an owner, custodian or harborer to let a dog leave their premises unless the animal is securely under leash, the leash runs no more than six feet, and a competent person has control of it. On the premises the dog must sit behind a fence, wall or other enclosure, or on that same leash. The article governs unincorporated Fulton plus any municipality that has contracted with the county for animal control service. Georgia's dog chapter sets only minimum standards and expressly leaves local governments free to regulate more tightly, which is why the ordinance and the street address travel together.

Snapping counts. Barking, by itself, does not

In March 2017 the Supreme Court decided Steagald v. Eason and told the courts below that the familiar nickname for this rule is more than a bit misleading. A pit bull moved into a Georgia home and, on its first day there, growled and snapped at the woman feeding it, then growled, barked and snapped at a neighbor who reached a hand near the pen. About a week later that neighbor's wife came through the back gate and the dog latched onto her arm, then her leg. The Court held the snapping could reasonably be read as an attempted bite and sent the knowledge question to a jury. The test it approved asks for at least one earlier incident that would cause a prudent person to anticipate the incident that caused the injury. Panels have since treated lunging and jumping as enough to raise that question, while barking and growling alone have not been.

What the first week should collect

Fix the address down to the unit number or the park entrance, because the ordinance follows the parcel. Photograph the leash, the collar, the latch, the gap in the fence, and the line the animal came from. Get the handler's name and a working phone number rather than a description. Ask nearby residents what the dog has done before and write their answers in their own words. Fulton County Animal Services accepts field service requests for dog bites at 404-613-0358, keeps officers on call after hours for bites and cruelty, and runs 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.

Two years, and a short list of variations

Actions for injuries to the person must be brought within two years after the right of action accrues under O.C.G.A. 9-3-33, while loss of consortium carries four. Damage to personal property, which is how a killed pet is treated, runs four years under 9-3-32. Someone under eighteen when the claim accrues gets the same period measured from the eighteenth birthday. No clock among those pauses because an adjuster is still writing letters.

Which Fulton courthouse opens the file

Most people assume this is Superior Court work. The State Court of Fulton County hears civil actions without regard to the amount in controversy, concurrently with the superior court, excepting only matters where superior court jurisdiction is exclusive. Its civil division lists torts and serious personal injury among the cases it tries. Magistrate court stops at $15,000 in the amount demanded or the value claimed, which a serious bite clears quickly.