A calculator is useful as a starting point for budgeting your next questions (medical costs, missed work, treatment timeline). It cannot reliably predict what you’ll recover because dog bite settlements are usually shaped by evidence and credibility.
In practice, Kearney cases often turn on questions like:
- Was the dog under reasonable control in a backyard, driveway, or common area?
- Was the incident captured by a witness, neighbor camera, or incident report?
- How clearly do medical records describe the injury and its cause?
- Did you get prompt treatment after the bite?
If the defense argues the incident was foreseeable, preventable, or not caused by the dog as alleged, the “math” becomes secondary to documentation.


