Auto Claim/Policyholder ran over dog-then surpriesed us with bills-Estoppel

[pittguy578]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? PA

Here is the situation. There is a policyholder-an insured who ran over her stepson's dog on his property causing serious injury to the dog. The claim was called into us after the initial vet visit-we were told the vet bill was $900. We had agreed to pay that. It was represented to us that the dog was fine and was back at home. Both the insured and the claimant (stepson) had our contact information-never contacted us back at all despite numerous phone calls. We then received medical bills totaling $19,000 for the dog. Apparently the dog took a turn for the worse after we had spoken with both parties, and we were never notified again. They are indicating they paid the bills because they thought we had agreed to pay the initial vet bill and thought everything else would be paid.

As I indicated above, they initially represented to us the dog was fine and the total bill was going to be $900-they never contacted us once the dog's condition changed and they conceded that fact. Legally the initial agreement to pay the $900 was over what we would legally owe-just the value of the dog, but since the dog was treated by the time the claim had come in and was doing better-we agreed to pay that bill.

Didn't the claimant/insured have a duty to notify us if the medical condition of the dog changed i.e. roughly 20x of the original amount stated in terms of the damages?

 

[You Are Guilty]

Who is "us" and "we"?

 

[racer72]

Sat in on a court case similar to this a few years ago. Guy accidentally ran over a dog and said he would pay vet bill. A few months later he is presented with a $9000 bill. Of course he refused to pay that much and dog owner sued.

The dog owner claimed the 12 year old dog needed multiple surgeries and a prosthetic leg. The guy that hit the dog expected a bill for only a few hundred dollars.

The judge asked the dog owner how much he would have spent out of his own pocket if he was liable for the injuries. He replied maybe $1000, any more and he would have had the dog put to sleep. The judge then asked how much the dog was worth value wise prior to being injured. He said no more than $100. The judge awarded a judgment to the dog owner for for $1100, $1000 for reasonable vet expenses and $100 for the value of the dog.

YMMV.

 

[pittguy578]

We-the insurance carrier.

The situation is really convoluted. The policyholder (our insured) paid for the claimant's vet bills (it was her son) because she felt bad she hit the dog.
When we spoke to both parties at the end of June-we were told the dog was fine and was back home ($900 bill). We had told them we agreed to pay for that bill. Legally it may have been more than we would have owed in the first place-it was a shelter dog and considered property-we would not owe more than the replacement value of the dog, but the dog was already fixed so we said we would pay THAT bill.I guess the dog took a turn for the worse a couple of days later..required surgeries and intensive treatments ..obviously for $19K. They had never bothered to notify us of the change in the status of the dog's condition. We would have told them any additional treatment would be on them. They had all all of our contact information, but didn't bother to contact us until all of the treatment had been done-and they admitted that. They assumed it would be paid. I am not sure if they misrepresented the dog's condition in the first place, but they certainly should have made us aware if the condition changed..It is really a quite unbelieable situation. Our staff attorney said we may have to pay it because we said we would take care of the original bill-I think we are rolling over on this one-no pun intended. We had agreed to pay the bill based on the fact the dog was "fixed" and doing better-there was never any impression we would pay for extensive treatments.

 

[You Are Guilty]

What are the notice requirements in the policy? My guess is if they are similar to all the others I've seen, there is no duty to pay a single penny more than already laid out.

And where is your legal department in all this? I'm fairly sure they would not want you making coverage decisions based off an internet forum