Money Moral Dilemma: She injured my dog - should she pay?

Augustus_the_Strong

Deleted_User wrote: »

She should have gone through her friend's bag and taken the money out of her purse while her friend has her head in the toilet.

Hey presto - no need for an embarassing conversation!

Nice idea, if somewhat amoral. But it amounts to the same thing as asking her to pay. This was an accident; your friend was ill enough to need to go to hospital; you were prepared to spend money dining out (unless perhaps your friend paid?) but not to pay for the upkeep of your own dog or insure it. You need to get your values straight or perhaps next time eat the dog, thus saving all round.

elizabethhull

laminki wrote: »

The more important question is "has your HUMAN friend recovered fully from food poisoning?"

Absolutely!
I understand that many people value their pets higher than their friends, but they should not be surprised when others do not share their values. Where is the concern for the hospitalised friend? She must have been in a very bad way, and as a reader of the dilemma as presented, I am FAR more concerned about the friend's well-being than the dog's.
Surely it is obvious the dog should have been kept out of the way. Would you let a toddler run around getting in the way of the ill person? It's time people took responsibility for their own families, whether human, canine or whatever.

felicity952

May I just say that no-one seems to have mentioned the food poisoning - this does not normally appear until 24 hours after eating infected food so maybe the friend was not poisoned by the restaurant you went to!
Any cases of severe food poisoning should be reported to Food Standard so they can investigate.

TK123_2

Mmmmm you were out for a meal in a restaurant. Who paid for that then???? Obviously not you if you haven't got money for vets. If your friend paid bit of a cheek to ask for money towards vets bills. It wasn't her fault she was ill and you should have had the sense to keep your dog out the way. If anyone was ill in my house i'd make sure our dog was nowhere around them. Last thing you want when you feel ill is a dog around you unless its your own of course.

cathodetube

oafish1 wrote: »

Why is everyone being so harsh? A dog is for life, you dont just 'get rid' when circumstances change, and pet insurance is expensive when the dog is older (£30 a month for my 9 year old and I have to pay the first £100). Not everyone is eligible for PDSA.

Advice: She is your friend, I am sure she is as embarrassed as you to bring the subject up.

Dont let this destroy your friendship, talk to her, and try to come to some solution.

And ignore all the criticisms on here, you have done nothing wrong.

TAke care and I hope your dog is better soon.

This is very true. Even if the dog had been insured then you as the owner would have to pay the excess. Some polices are even charging the first 30% or so of the bill after the excess (usually ranging from £50 - £100) is paid. I don't think you can ask your friend for any money. Perhaps she will offer you some. But I would certainly get your friend's illness reported to Environmental Health at your local council and let them take it from there. They may have had other reports of other people suffering after dining at the same restaurant. Are you sure it was food poisoning and not just a bug? Did you eat any of the same food as your friend? Hope everything works out.

kryssykk

Friends are so valuable you should just read the reply from Shehen and look no further.

I couldn't have put it better myself, except to say that like dogs a friend is for life if that friendship is respected and treasured and not just for Christmas.

cathodetube

Deleted_User wrote: »

She should have gone through her friend's bag and taken the money out of her purse while her friend has her head in the toilet.

Hey presto - no need for an embarassing conversation!

Are you and the people who said thanks to this post serious???

MrsTinks

Before taking on ANY pet consider if you could afford to keep it and keep it insured! should you loose your job for any reason... if the answer is no then don't get it! As pet owners it is OUR responcibility to care for and provide medical care for our pets - For most that means insurance. If you can't afford insurance then don't have the pet. If you can afford the vet bills then don't buy the insurance...

As for asking a friend to pay it... No. If it was purpose malicious injury then sure - make a claim etc - but as this was someone who was severely ill and geniunely not even aware rather than just careless then I think it would be very harsh to ask for them to pay. If they offer... fair enough.

Mouseboy007

I'm constantly astounded at the blame culture we seem to encounter every day whereby everyone know's their 'rights' but few are prepared to accept their 'responsibilities'.

The facts are that a restaraunt is *thought* to have caused food poisoning - I'm not sure I've read that this has been confirmed. I'm not casting aspertions but quite often people claim food poisoning despite having drunk a woefully high amount of alcohol or 'forgotten' to wash their hands when going to the loo before eating something with their hands.

Assuming however, that this is food poisoning, that should be something that the friend follows up. I can't see how anyone can sensibly say that the dog owner should go to the restaraunt. In a similar analagy, if someone drives into my car, and i'm so shook up that I drive into someone else's car 30mins later, should the person I hit claim from the person that hit me? No, of course not. You can't keep regressing 'fault' until someone accepts responsibility. What if the restarunt were to say that their food was sourced from xyz supplier, who in turn explain that they got the food from xyz farmer....should you take the farmer to court for the money? Where does it end?

How about people taking responsibility for their own actions.
My moral compass would tell me that if I had injured someone's pet that (circumstances dependant - as in my friend hadn't contributed heavily to injuting their pet - i.e. pushed me into it) I would feel responsible for paying for it.

From the original poster's perspective, I would suggest that the situation is explained to the friend. If the friend is not prepared to help, the three main choices are
* 'try' to take it further legally (I don't think this will be very fruitfull)
* terminate your friendship
* try to put it past you

From the friends perspective, I would suggest that the main choices are
* Pay up!
* terminate friendship
* hope your friend puts it past them / try to ignore

The take-it-to-the-restaraunt in my eyes is peripheral to the main problem. It's up to the friend whether they take their food posining claims further and up to the friend/s how they settle their injured-dog dispute DIRECTLY with the perpetraor (the friend).

Unfortunately there are a lot of variables, however the thing that bothers me is that the purpose of a lot of posters threads is to try and determine and allocate blame and responsibility to pay.

Accidents happen. Insurances are available. Where something isn't backed by insurance and an accident occurs, you sometimes have to put your hands up and accept that 'accidents happen'.

Settling as friends is the best outcome in my opinion and depending on the friendship will depend on the outcome of discussing it. Settling legally is (in my opinion) too readily available for a lot of things that maybe 20 years ago would never have reached the courts. As I said 'blame culture'.

It reminds me of an 'accident' in an American furniture store where a woman tripped over an unruly child and broke her arm. She took the company to court over neglect for her personal safety and won. She took the company for hunderds of thousands of dollars and they had to foreclose. The irony was ....it was her child!

:D:D

[Deleted User]

Absolutely.

What I do, is to take a deposit from each of my friends before meeting them, in case they should cause any damage, injury or otherwise incovenience me in a way which would demand reparation.

It's then a simple job to deduct damages from the deposit at the end of the night, thus avoiding any social etiquette dilemmas.

My mother insisted on laying her deposit by credit card at the weekend, so naturally, I felt obliged to add a 1.5% surcharge to cover my processing fees. I would advise you to consider implementing similar procedures, so as not to risk being out of pocket at any social event.