Dog Bite Lawsuit Statistics
I have recently received a good bit of heated interest in my last two posts (here and here) on the Maryland Court of Appeals opinion in Tracey v. Solesky, in which the court held that in dog bite cases involving a pit bull or cross-bred pit bull mix, plaintiff no longer needs to prove that the dog in particular, or pit bulls, in general, are dangerous.
There is no question that dog bite claims make up their fair share of serious personal injury claims. Here are some statistics:
The insurance industry pays more than $1 billion in dog-bite claims each year. State Farm, the insurance company in Solesky, paid more than $109 million on about 3,800 dog bite claims nationwide in 2011. In 2010, State Farm had approximately 3,500 claims and $90 million in payouts.
The Insurance Information Institute estimated that nearly $479 million in dog bite claims were paid