Case study of delivery drivers bitten by dogs
If you are a delivery driver who has suffered a dog bite accident at a customer’s home, you may be entitled to claim for compensation. We can help you recover losses incurred when you have an accident involving a dog bite in the UK.
Whether you work for Amazon, DPD, Ervi, Royal Mail, DHL, Just Eat, McDonald’s, Deliveroo, Dominoes, or UberEATS, we Brits love our home deliveries. Home food deliveries have recently been on the increase, with Just Eat hitting a billion orders last year. The rise in takeaway and food delivery in the UK is partially due to the pandemic which saw new trends in dining when restaurants closed.
Are dog bites common in Britain?
The rise in the number of food deliveries has increased the number of delivery drivers who get bitten by dogs. Last year the restaurant delivery business grew to a value of £10.5 billion.1 UK newspaper The Guardian nicknamed the growing problem of dog bites as ‘pandemic puppy’ and attribute this rise to the lack of dog and puppy training during lockdown.
What to do if a dog bites you?
If a dog bites you while you are at work, you can claim compensation against the owner of that animal, or the owner of the property. This is an area of personal injury law which focuses on establishing that the third party breached a duty of care to you and through this negligence, you received an injury. If you can prove this, you can claim compensation for the dog bite.
We specialise in dog bite claims as a large number of our clients are employed as delivery drivers for large firms such as DPD, Evri or Amazon, or they may even work as self-employed delivery drivers. We handle dog bite claims on a daily basis, however, recent months have seen an increase in the number of clients bitten by dogs who specifically work as delivery drivers.
Examples of dog bite delivery driver claims
The average dog bite compensation can vary between £1,000 – £50.000 depending on inflicted injuries. In one case, our specialist dog bite solicitor secured compensation for a London based DPD delivery driver who was bitten on the ankle after he handed the parcel to the customer. Fortunately for the client, the wound healed well with minimal scarring. Our solicitor obtained witness evidence after the customer denied that his dog had attacked at all. This evidence was sufficient for our solicitor to get the dog owner’s insurance company to settle the compensation claim. Our client was happy with the quick settlement and received compensation of £3,500.
In a second example of food delivery drivers being bitten by dogs, we dealt with a client based in Manchester who worked with Just Eat. This client was bitten when he placed the delivery order over the customer’s gate. The driver did not realise the dog was in the garden. He suffered a non-serious bite to his right hand, earning a compensation claim of almost £4,000.
Another example is when a post man tried to put a “sorry, I missed you” card through a letter box. Unfortunately, he was bitten in his hand by a dog while pushing the piece the piece of paper through the bristles on the letterbox. The sustained injury prevented him from working for a few days. We were able to secure him compensation of £2,500.
The amount of compensation awarded depends on how badly you were attacked by a dog. If you sustained a serious injury during a dog attack or made financial losses, the amount awarded in compensation will be much higher. For instance, we secured compensation of £30,000 for a Deliveroo driver who was severely bitten on the face which caused significant long-term scarring.
1Statista, 2021: https://www.statista.com/topics/4679/food-delivery-and-takeaway-market-in-the-united-kingdom-uk
Why choose SilverOak Solicitors?
If you are a delivery driver who has been the victim of a dog attack, we want to help you. Contact us today and let us fight for the maximum amount of compensation for your injury.
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