Should I take vets to court??

golden_eagle

DrScotsman wrote: »

Small claims court? The fees are minimum and no solicitor required.

The proof of negligence is already mostly done with the admission of fault of the E.V.

You are of course completely correct that nothing is guaranteed, but I am not advising the OP to go to court, I am just stating what I believe the E.V.'s legal liability is. That alone is a good bargaining chip in resolving the dispute.

Yes, you might not need a solicitor but if you wish to argue negligence unless you have at least a basic understanding of tort than you wouldn't really know what conditions need to be satisfied to prove negligence.

You also say the vet has admitted fault... Without seeing the contents of the letter it is impossible to say what the vet actually "admitted" to. I sincerely doubt the vet actually admitted liability for being negligent in the letter. The vet most probably only apologised for the fact that OP was given erroneous information at the time and as a gesture of goodwill offered a small compensation not admitting liability though.

I am not sure how asking for more money from the vet will help anything. The poor cat is dead and OP's daughter is still traumatised. Asking for more money is not going to ease the pain. I appreciate OP is upset and wants somebody to pay (literally) for this terrible situation but it just seems to be a terrible result of a number of things going wrong culminating in the death of that poor kitten.

Sharra

I feel so sorry for your loss and for your kitten, but I have to agree with the people who are saying if you can't afford to find the money for vet's bills from somewhere, and can't afford insurance, you really shouldn't get another pet. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but even when I was completely broke, I would have sold everything I owned to save my dog's life, and I think any pet owner should make that same committment.

patchwork_cat

I agree with Kiri I would have told the emergency vet to carry on at least stabilise the cat until the morning when I would have taken this up with the senior partner about it being their responsibility.

As for the money well it won't bring back your kitten will it?

eveie189

MrsE wrote: »

But didn't you say the EV said you could pay the money you had on you now & the rest after

If it was £1000 or £2000 the treatment I can understand you taking a long hard look at can you afford it, but you are talking about a couple of hundred quid between life & death

They didn't. They said we would have to pay £250 now and all my husband had on him was £200. They wouldn't accept any less

Jimx26

^^^^^^^^^

eveie189 wrote: »

I would just like to xclarify a few things.
1. I was not offered a collar to stop her pulling her stitches out at any time. Also, ironically enough she took her stitches out in a period of less than 10 minutes when I could not see her whereas she could have done it when I was asleep or does being asleep make me a bad pet owner?
2. I gave my husband every bit if money we have to pay for treatment but £200 was not enough and although they said the rest could be paid within 30 days there is no way I could have paid this.
.

was point no 2 a lie then?

dizziblonde

Am I going crazy? I know this is a new post - but I'm sure I've read this post pretty much word for word a few months back (cat intestines tend to stick in your mind).

mattcm

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Poor kitten, sounds awful. I am confused, why do you think it is the vets fault that the kitten pulled out it's stitches and intestines?? That is the part that traumatised your daughter and seems to me to have been unavoidable..

Precisely. Really sorry you had to go through it but for your sake and especially for your daughter, you need to move on. Just accept it was a horrible situation and you had to make a call. Anything else seems like profiteering, and a court would think so too. You risk dragging out a nasty experience and making things a whole lot worse too.

usernameisvalid

cakeordeath wrote: »

aren't you the same person who posted the following on another thread?


you're very judgemental for someone who leaves a dog unsupervised with a potentially lethal amount of toxic substance.

I would hardly have thought there was enough there to kill a reasonable sized dog. None of the brands of chocolate mentioned contain much in the way of chocolate. My own dog (17kg) ate his way through a large box of roses and celebrations one afternoon ( at least a kilo total weight with wrappers) and lived to tell the tale with no side effects whatsoever ( apart from highly coloured poo for the next couple of days.

Even the emergency vet we contacted said there was so very little Theobromine in the chocolate he would be surprised if the dog even got the runs (which he never)


As for raisin toxicology, not all dogs are prone to it. The warnings about raisins is given because SOME dogs will die

Fire_Fox

Cakeordeath said "potentially lethal" not lethal.

MrsE_2

eveie189 wrote: »

They didn't. They said we would have to pay £250 now and all my husband had on him was £200. They wouldn't accept any less

Well you said they offered to let you pay the remainder within 30 days in an earlier post

eveie189 wrote: »

2. I gave my husband every bit if money we have to pay for treatment but £200 was not enough and although they said the rest could be paid within 30 days there is no way I could have paid this.