Pit bull attacks 5 year old boy

A pit bull attacked a 5 year old California boy last week, biting him in the face and ripping his cheek off.  The boy survived the attack after other children got an adult who was able to get the dog off the boy.

When children are the victims of dog bite attacks, the key elements of the damages involved are medical expenses (past and future), pain and suffering (past and future, and disfigurement.  In many cases, the medical expenses are surprisingly low.  In this case, however, they will be enormous.

In most dog bite cases, disfigurement is the single most significant element of damages.  This relates to the scarring from the injury and the impact it has on the life of the dog bite victim.  Because children frequently are not able to control the impulse to look at something unusual appearing such as bad scarring on the face, a child dog bite victim is likely to be self-conscious of his/her appearance in ways that the child's parents may not even be aware. 

As experienced Chicago personal injury lawyers, when we represent children who are the victims of dog bites, we frequently seek the testimony of people around the child such as teachers, babysitters, friend's parents, other relatives, or camp counselors to share their observations of how people act around the child.  Telling the same story from a number of different views is compelling evidence of the impact that the injury has had on the child's life and shows the damages in ways that even photographs of dog bite injuries could not.