After obtaining more than $25 Million in judgments and settlements for his clients, Fox 2 News called upon Joshua P. Myers to discuss his book about how to defeat the car insurance companies.
Founding Partners Stephen R. Schultz & Joshua P. Myers have been consistently pictured in St. Louis Magazine's Best Attorney's edition.
Founding Partners Stephen R. Schultz & Joshua P. Myers have been honored with induction into the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Less than 1% of U.S. attorneys are members.
In never working with a lawyer before, we were afraid that we wouldn’t even know if our lawyer was doing what he was supposed to be doing and that we would be confused throughout the process. These fears turned out to be completely unfounded. He was relentless in dealing with the other side and communicated the status of the case frequently so we were up to date on what was happening. We really appreciate all of his work and couldn't have asked for better representation.
As a Missouri dog bite lawyer based in St. Louis, I’ve seen
many serious injuries which occurred from a dog attack.The majority of the times, people call me
expecting we’d have no problem obtaining payment to cover their medical bills
and injuries as a result of being attacked by someone else’s dog.Over the year, I have seen many brutal
attacks.These have often resulted in
surgery to repair the wounds.These
surgeries often cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.
However,
what many people were surprised to find out was that under Missouri law, dog
bite owners traditionally were not automatically responsible.Additionally, Missouri does not employ a “one
bite rule” as many others mistakenly believe. The so-called “one bite rule”, is commonly understood to mean that the
dog’s owner is automatically responsible if their dog has previously bitten
someone.Rather, the traditional rule in
Missouri has been that the dog owner was responsible if they have prior
knowledge of their dog’s dangerous propensities.Now, often this was satisfied if we could
show that there was a prior bite. However, this was not a requirement. Additionally, there were other ways to prove liability in dog attack
injury cases.This included utilizing
municipal leash laws when the dog bite occurred off of the owner’s property and
the dog was not restrained on a leash. However, under these laws, I had to pass on representing many victims of
severe dog bite injuries because we could not find any evidence of a prior
attack or anything that would prove prior knowledge of dangerous
propensities.Of course, in dog bite
cases, the owner hardly ever admits to knowing about a prior bite.In fact, I remember one dog bite case where
we found out from a neighbor that the dog had previously jumped the fence and
bit her in the throat.She even had
pictures of the dog’s bite marks on her throat. Yet when I deposed the dog’s owners, they continued to deny the prior
bite.When I confronted them with the
pictures that the neighbor had taken of her throat, which occurred before the
dog attacked my client, they simply waved it off and said it looked more like a
scratch from the dog’s nails. (Regardless, we ultimately settled the case for $75,000.00).
However,
what few people are now aware of is that the Missouri Legislature quietly
passed a law in 2009 which now holds dog owners automatically responsible for
the dog bites.Essentially, the law
eliminates the old “dangerous propensities” standard.In today’s era of tort reform, it is very
seldom that we see a law passed which actually protects injury victims.In fact, I’ve been shocked at how little
publicity there has been surrounding this law. Even yesterday, I was speaking with a very experienced Missouri injury
lawyer who was unaware of this new development.
Simply
put, Missouri’s dog bite laws have now changed to hold the dog bite owner
automatically responsible, however, regardless of any prior attacks.If you have been attacked or bitten by a dog,
make sure your St. Louis dog bite lawyer is familiar with these new laws.They should often be familiar with the
aggressive tendencies of breeds such as Pit Bulls, Rottweilers and German
Shepherds.While certainly these breeds
are not always dangerous, they are the breeds that we see most often in
dog bite injury cases.
If
you’ve been attacked and injured by a dog and wish to speak to a top Missouri dog
bite attorney, feel free to contact Josh Myers at 888.956.2487 or
314.720.2706.Based in St. Louis,
Missouri, he handles dog bite cases in all of Missouri and Illinois.It’s always free to discuss your case and
there are never any retainer hourly fees. Rather, his fee is a percentage of the amount he recovers on your
behalf.If there is no recovery, there
is no attorney fee.
The information on this St. Louis Personal Injury & Workers Compensation Attorneys / Law Firm website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this or associated pages, documents, comments, answers, emails, or other communications should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information on this website is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing of this information does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertisements. Neither the Supreme Court of Missouri nor The Missouri Bar reviews or approves certifying organizations or specialists designations. Past results afford no guarantee of future results and every case is different and judged on its own merits. All case results listed on this website were obtained by Joshua P. Myers or Stephen Schultz in cases in which they were lead or co-counsel.
