Our client, a 35 year old homeowner in Centre County, PA, was sitting on her porch reading on a Spring evening in June 2024 when a dog owned by her nextdoor neighbor escaped its house through an open screen door.  The dog, which was a small terrier mix, attacked our client's rescued pitbull mix which was sitting peacefully on the porch beside our client.  Our client leapt up from her chair, realizing the small dog had no chance of winning the battle with her pitbull mix.  She grabbed her own dog which was trying to tear apart the trespassing terrier-mix, trying to prevent her dog from killing the smaller dog.  In the process of wrestling her dog off the intruder, she was bitten by both dogs repeatedly (approximately 25 bite punctures to her hands and arms).  This was not the first time the neighbor's dog had escaped the yard and attacked another dog in the neighborhood.

Our client's bite wounds which were largely puncture holes in the skin, mostly healed up invisibly.  However some of the wounds left noticeable scars which made her self conscious.  After the bites had healed, she went to her dermatologist who recommended multiple laser treatments to minimize the scarring.  The treatments were all out of pocket to the client as they were deemed cosmetic and not covered by health insurance.  Two of the scars were capable of improvement via surgical intervention and the client opted to have the surgery which was to be a brief outpatient procedure scheduled in a local plastic surgeon's office (costing $3000).  

After our demand for policy limits was sent to the defendant's insurance company, the first offer was $25,000.  We urged the client not to accept the offer.  After multiple offers and counteroffers, we convinced the insurance company to pay the full policy limits of $100,000. plus $1000 in premises medical coverage.