My aunt was watching a friend’s cat and the cat bit her.

Happened in the cat owner’s home

Bite area ‘immediately’ began to swell

Aunt has been in the hospital on IV Antibiotics for 3 days

Has missed 3 days of work (so far)

Infection is continuing to grow

What are my aunt’s options from a financial point-of-view? I’m certain the hospital stay will be crazy expensive. Cannot sue the friend’s homeowners policy because she rents her home, does not own.

Sorry that happened. Wish her well. The best thing to do when that happens is immediately clean it with rubbing alcohol or similar.

Hopefully your aunt has some insurance.

Renter should have renter's insurance.

Landlord should still have a homeowner's policy, because the landlord still owns the home. It's often called a Landlord or Rental Property policy.

Landlord may also have an umbrella policy.

Not sure why anyone other than your Aunt would or should be responsible financially though. She was visiting the friend, she kinda assumes the risk of being around said friend's cat.

Cat scratch fever or cat bite fever?

^^^^^^^
This. Cat Scratch Fever is actually an entirely different animal. Get it??




GET WELL SOON to your Aunt, Ronin!!

I don't think that's cat-scratch fever. Here's a description: Cat-Scratch Fever

I had the same thing happen to me as happened to Ronin1069's aunt. In my case it was a new cat to our household that had come from a poor situation. Wasn't the cat's fault, but mine. I should have known better.

I immediately cleaned and flushed the wound thoroughly, but that wasn't enough. Later that evening the finger started to swell and I could see the symptoms of an infection spreading from that finger to the back of that hand. My GP sent my to urgent care immediately. Got an antibiotic injection, a prescription for oral antibiotics, and he scheduled an X-Ray to make sure the bite hadn't nicked the bone--which would have made treatment significantly more difficult. (It hadn't.)

The antibiotic treatments nearly immediately halted the progress of the infection and by Day 2 I was on the mend.

I wish your aunt well, Ronin1069.

Yeah - took my cat to the vet, he had bladder issues.

Bit the hell out of me and sunk his fangs all the way in...vet said go now to the ER now!

Got abx right away but the hand still gave me problems for a week and two years later that same hand acts up sometimes where he bit me....

There is often well-developed animal law in the various states. It is often statutory, especially in agricultural states, and there is often common law from the old days still in play, too. (For example, Texas has a lot of law concerning livestock, livestock on other people's land, livestock causing damage to other livestock and property, etc. We are a ranching state after all.)

Under general negligence principles, the pet owner may not be liable if the pet was not a known biter. Animals sometimes bite, and if there was no reason to think the cat might bite, he may get a free bite or two.

Also, doesn't your aunt have some health insurance? She may be out a deductible or co-pays, but the main loss will be suffered by her health insurer. If she were to be awarded money in a lawsuit and there is health insurance, the insurer has subrogation rights in the award of damages. Hell, if the insurer really thinks there is fault in the cat owner, they might have the ability to sue on behalf of their insured to get their money back.

Of course, if there is no insurance for the cat owner, it is probably all a waste of time. You can't get blood out of a turnip. I wouldn't expect the landlord's policy to cover the bite of a tenant's animal, but who knows until you read the policy. Renter's insurance may be worth looking at.

All this depends on specific provisions of state law and the insurance policies in play. You'd have to ask someone who knows your aunt's state's law.

I got it just from touching a stray cat, no scratches or bites.

Lymph nodes swollen like plums and flu like aches and symptoms.

This was 8th grade.

I had a buddy get the fever from his cat when I was in college.

He got sick and when he went to the Dr. it was Cat scratch fever……

It hit his lymph nodes and they were swollen.

Before that I had just thought it was a Nugent song.

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Originally posted by jhe888:
<Whole Post>

Thank you for that response, it is exactly what I was looking for.

A little over 20 years ago, my coworker told me he had a litter of kittens and I could come pick out one or two. He had been home sick from work that day, but I didn't think anything of it and drove out to his place in the country and picked out 2 kittens. After missing several more days of work was diagnosed with cat scratch fever and came back to the office after about 1.5 weeks but didn't feel 100% for about a month. Believe me, I was one nervous dude every time one of my little hellions scratched me or bit me, but I never caught it.

I had a scratch in the joint of my finger. It got slightly inflamed. A gland under my arm, in my arm pit swelled, dr wanted to do biopsy.
I showed him the scratch. He opened it, puss came out. Antibiotics and a week later swollen gland was gone.

There's a similar infection you can get from rose thorns. I have a gardener friend who got it, no cats involved, and doc said it was from rose thorns. Same lymph node swelling.

Came down with it 40 years ago. Lymph nodes under my arm swelled. I could not bring my arm down to my side due to the pain it caused. Slept on my side with my arm draped over 2 pillows for a few weeks. I sleep that way every night to this day.

Cats have filthy mouths. No joke, they are absolutely dangerous when it comes to infections.

Cat bites are no joke. I spent 10 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics with one surgery to cure a cat bite that spread a staph infection. Granted, delaying treatment for a couple days made it an ER moment, but that can’t must’ve had the nastiest mouth on the planet.

An incident from about 40 years ago. My family and this other american family lived in Norway as an USAF NATO assignment. During the summer the night did not darken due to the Midnight Sun. Their cat would me-yowl all night to be let out because of the light and activity of the magpies. Eventually they let the cat out after weeks of me-yowling. The magpies dive-swooped the cat. The father went out to rescue the cat from the magpies. The frightened cat scratched him. The scratch on the thumb became infected. Part of his thumb was amputated.