You Were Doing Your Job When the Bite Happened
You were working security at a rooftop bar in Center City, Philadelphia. It was a weekend night, the venue was crowded, and a man in plain clothes — later identified in police communications as a sworn Philadelphia Highway Patrol officer, off duty — was in the room. Something went wrong. The interaction escalated. And then his teeth broke your skin. You went to a hospital. You got a tetanus shot. You went home with a wound that wasn’t a story you ever thought you’d have to tell.
If that is you, this page is about your case. Not the bar’s insurance problem. Not the police department’s internal-affairs file. Yours. The compensation you are owed for what happened. The evidence that is quietly disappearing. The clock that is already running against you.
You can call us right now at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. You do not pay us a cent unless we win money for you. Hablamos Español. And the single most important thing we will tell you in the first ten minutes is something no one in the bar’s insurance chain or the police department’s media office is going to volunteer: you may have a three-lane case, and the lane with the shortest clock is the one that almost no injured person knows to ask about.
Three Lanes, Three Defendants, One Short Clock
A bite by an off-duty police officer at a commercial bar is not one lawsuit. It is three separate legal claims against three separate defendants, each with its own insurance carrier, its own lawyer, and its own playbook to keep the money away from you. The lanes are:
- The off-duty officer himself — a civil claim for assault and battery under Pennsylvania common law, with the real possibility of punitive damages because the conduct is the kind juries find genuinely shocking.
- The bar that hosted the night — a premises-liability claim for negligent security and, just as importantly, a Dram Shop claim under Pennsylvania’s Liquor Code for the alcohol the bar continued to pour into a person the staff should have seen was visibly intoxicated.
- The City of Philadelphia — a claim under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act (PSTCA), the special law that controls suits against Pennsylvania cities and their police. This lane is the one with the alarmingly short deadline.
Each lane is real. Each is independent. The mistake we see in intake after intake is that the injured person picks one — usually the bar, sometimes the officer — and lets the other two quietly close. The officer and his police union will tell you the City has to defend him. The City will tell you he was off duty and outside the scope of his job. The bar will tell you the officer was a “patron,” not a security threat it could have foreseen. Every one of those statements is a defense move, and not one of them is the final word.
Lane 1: The Off-Duty Officer
The civil claim against the off-duty officer is a Pennsylvania common-law action for assault and battery. To win you must prove the officer (a) acted with intent to cause harmful or offensive contact, or (b) acted with knowledge that such contact was substantially certain to occur (the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 18 standard Pennsylvania follows), and (c) you were in fact harmed. Biting is not a close call. Teeth breaking skin meets every element.
What makes this lane unusually dangerous for the defense is the outrage factor. Juries understand the difference between a shoving match in a bar and a uniformed police officer — or even a known off-duty officer — sinking his teeth into a working security guard. Pennsylvania recognizes punitive damages where the defendant’s conduct shows a reckless indifference to the rights of others or a malicious, wanton, or willful disregard. A bite in a setting where the assailant had the institutional weight of a badge behind him is exactly the kind of conduct punitive damages are designed to punish. Punitive awards are not capped in Pennsylvania in the way some states cap them; they are governed by a multifactor test focused on the character of the act and the deterrence function, and they can multiply the compensatory recovery substantially.
The defense will argue the officer was provoked. The defense will argue the security guard was the aggressor. The defense will argue it was mutual combat. None of those arguments defeat the claim on its own — they go to comparative fault, which in Pennsylvania reduces but does not bar your recovery unless you are found 51% or more at fault. If the officer was the one who used his teeth, no reasonable jury concludes that you, the guard, were more than half at fault for being bitten.
Pennsylvania’s modified comparative negligence rule (42 Pa.C.S. § 7102): “Any recovery by a claimant shall be reduced in proportion to the percentage of negligence attributable to the claimant… There shall be no recovery by a claimant who is more than 50% at fault for the total amount of damages sustained.”
That last sentence is the wall the defense tries to push you over. They want 51% on you. They want the comparison to be: he swung, you swung, you got bitten, you were the more culpable party. The medical record, the witness list, and the bar’s own surveillance will tell that story differently — but only if those records survive.
Lane 2: The Bar (Premises Liability and the Pennsylvania Dram Shop Act)
The bar is liable to you in two distinct ways, and the second one is the one the bar’s insurance company will fight hardest to keep out of the case.
Negligent security
A commercial bar that charges a cover, serves alcohol, and staffs security has a duty under Pennsylvania premises-liability law to take reasonable steps to protect invitees — including its own security staff — from foreseeable harmful conduct by third parties. A bite by an off-duty officer is a foreseeable risk exactly in the place that hired security to keep the room safe. The bar had both the obligation to train its security staff on how to handle a visibly intoxicated off-duty officer without being injured and the obligation to stop serving that officer when his intoxication became apparent.
Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop statute (47 P.S. § 4-493)
This is the lane that changes the math. Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop Act makes it unlawful to sell, furnish, or give liquor or malt or brewed beverages to any person visibly intoxicated, and creates civil liability when the illegal sale results in injury. Read it as the bar’s own license to be sued in this situation:
47 P.S. § 4-493 — Furnishing liquor to visibly intoxicated persons: “No person shall sell, furnish, give, deliver or knowingly permit any person to sell, furnish, give or deliver any liquor or malt or brewed beverages to… any person visibly intoxicated, or to any minor…” The statute imposes civil liability for “death, injury or property damage” caused by or to the impaired patron, and a commercial establishment that disregards the statute is, in the eyes of a Pennsylvania jury, the kind of defendant punitive damages are designed to reach.
The elements of a Pennsylvania Dram Shop claim are: (1) the bar sold or furnished alcohol to a person; (2) at the time of the sale, that person was visibly intoxicated; (3) the bar knew or should have known of the visible intoxication; and (4) the intoxication was a substantial factor in causing your injury. The bar’s own point-of-sale system, the bartender’s testimony, the security camera at the bar showing the number of drinks consumed across the evening, and any prior incidents the bar had with the same patron all build the second and third elements.
Why this lane matters so much is the insurance. The bar carries a liquor-liability policy with limits well above the medical and pain-and-suffering damages in a bite case. That policy is the realistic source of recovery for the human component of your losses. The bar’s general-liability carrier will likely have an assault-and-battery exclusion in its coverage — but that exclusion often does not apply to the bar’s own negligent act in over-serving, which is exactly what the Dram Shop statute reaches. Two different policies. Two different insurers. Two different fights. Your case is built to walk through both.
Lane 3: The City of Philadelphia (PSTCA, and the 6-Month Deadline)
This is the lane with the trap door.
The Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 et seq., is the statute that controls when you sue a Pennsylvania city, county, or other local government unit, or its employees acting within the scope of their employment. The PSTCA abolishes common-law sovereign immunity but replaces it with a statutory immunity that has specific exceptions. For a claim arising out of an assault by a police officer, the relevant analysis is whether the officer was acting within the scope of his employment and whether the claim fits within one of the eight enumerated exceptions to immunity in 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(b).
Two things have to happen for the City to be in the case at all.
First, the officer must be found to have been acting within the scope of his employment. The City will argue he was off duty, off premises, and on his own time, and therefore outside the scope. That argument has real force. It is also not automatic. A sworn officer who identifies himself as police, who draws on the institutional authority of the badge in a confrontation, who is present in a venue where the police are a known presence — these are facts that support scope. Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly held that off-duty police conduct is not categorically outside the scope of employment. The question is fact-specific and it is exactly the kind of question that survives summary judgment and reaches a jury.
Second, you must file a written notice of claim with the City of Philadelphia within six months of the date of the incident. This is the single most important deadline in this entire case. The PSTCA’s notice-of-claim requirement at 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(a) is a mandatory, jurisdictional prerequisite. Miss the six-month window and the courthouse door against the City is closed forever — no matter how strong the evidence against the officer and no matter how clearly the officer was acting in his capacity as a police officer that night. The City of Philadelphia’s Risk Management Division is the office that receives the notice, and the notice must contain specific information about the incident, the injury, and the relief requested. If you have not yet filed this notice, that is the first piece of paper we put in the mail.
42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(a) — Notice requirement: “Within six months from the date that the injury was sustained… the claimant shall present to the appropriate office of the local agency a written notice stating the time, place and circumstances of the injury… If the claimant fails to present the notice within the time allowed by this subsection, the claim shall be forever barred.”
The statute of limitations for the civil assault-and-battery claim against the officer himself is two years (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524). The Dram Shop claim against the bar is also two years. But the PSTCA notice against the City is six months. They run on different clocks. None of them are interchangeable.
The Evidence That Is Disappearing Right Now
This is the part of the case that decides everything, and the part the bar’s insurer is counting on you not knowing.
The bar’s CCTV
Most Center City rooftop bars overwrite their security video on a rolling thirty-day loop. Some are shorter. The footage that shows the officer’s visible intoxication, the bartender continuing to serve, the security guard’s professional attempts to de-escalate, the bite itself — that footage is the spine of the case. The City of Philadelphia also operates the Real Time Crime Center, a network of public and private surveillance feeds that may have captured the same area. The bar’s cameras, the building’s cameras, the surrounding Center City District cameras, and any private cameras in adjacent buildings can each be a piece of the puzzle. The preservation letter must go out today, not next week. We send it the same day you call.
Body-worn camera footage
The Philadelphia Police Department policy on body-worn cameras (PPD Directive 4.22) provides that footage from an officer-involved incident is generally retained for a period measured from the incident date. If the off-duty officer was wearing a body camera, or if any on-duty officers responded and activated theirs, the PPD footage is discoverable and must be preserved. A separate preservation request goes to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Office of Forensic Science and to Internal Affairs. Failure to preserve becomes a spoliation argument and, in the right case, an adverse inference instruction to the jury.
Medical records and bite photographs
A human bite is a forensic injury. The puncture pattern, the size of the dental arch, the location on the body, the presence or absence of saliva contamination, the time elapsed before treatment — all of it is time-sensitive. The puncture marks fade as the wound heals. The tetanus record from the emergency department is in the hospital chart on a finite retention schedule. Get photographs of the wound taken at the hospital, get a copy of the ED record, and get both before they are scattered across the chart by a medical-records system that does not know this is evidence.
The bar’s point-of-sale data
The bar’s POS system records every drink, every transaction, and every server. It records the time of the order, the type of drink, the server, the open-tab holder, and the credit-card or tab close-out. That data is the under-oath testimony of the bartender about how much alcohol the off-duty officer was served that night. It is stored on the bar’s system and is overwritten on the bar’s own retention schedule — frequently within sixty to ninety days. Demand it.
Witness information
The other security guards working that night. The bartender. The cocktail server. The other patrons on the rooftop who saw the confrontation. Witness memory decays in days. Get names, phone numbers, and written statements while the memory is still hot.
The internal-affairs file
Once the police department opens an internal investigation (and on a reported bite by an officer, it must), the IA file, the use-of-force report, the supervisor’s narrative, and any disciplinary records are all discoverable in the civil case under standard Pennsylvania discovery rules. The IA file lives behind a wall that requires a subpoena and, often, a motion to compel. We know how to get past it.
The Insurance Companies’ Playbook (and How We Beat Each Move)
Every insurance carrier in this case — the bar’s commercial general-liability carrier, the bar’s liquor-liability carrier, the City’s self-insured retention layer, the off-duty officer’s personal liability carrier — will run the same playbook in some form. We name the plays so you recognize them when they show up.
Play 1: The “friendly” recorded statement
Within a week of the incident, an adjuster from the bar’s CGL carrier will call. The voice will be warm. The adjuster will say they just want to “check on you” and “make sure you’re getting the care you need.” The call is almost certainly being recorded. The questions are designed to lock you into a version of events, lock in your medical history, and lock in your earliest pain complaints. The “I just want to confirm what happened” call is the foundation of every defense that follows.
Our counter: You do not give a recorded statement to the adverse carrier. Not now. Not without counsel. Not after a single conversation with a stranger on the phone. We will handle every communication. If the carrier insists on a statement before settlement discussions can advance, the statement is taken in our office, with us present, with full preparation, and on a schedule we set — not on a schedule the carrier sets.
Play 2: The fast check with a release
Within thirty days, the bar’s adjuster will offer a check. The number will be small. The check will arrive with a release printed on the back or attached as a separate document, and the release will purport to settle every claim you have — including the Dram Shop claim, the punitive exposure, the loss-of-consortium claim if you are married, and any future medical complication from the bite. Cashing the check is signing the release. Signing the release is closing every door.
Our counter: You do not cash any check, sign any release, or accept any payment from any insurance carrier for any party in this case until we have reviewed the offer, the release, the full extent of your injuries, and the full value of the case. A bite injury has infection risk, scarring risk, and psychological-injury risk that may not be visible in the first month. Settling fast is settling blind.
Play 3: The IME — the “Independent” Medical Examination
The bar’s CGL policy almost certainly contains a clause requiring you to submit to a medical examination by a doctor of the carrier’s choosing if the carrier pays for it. The carrier will pick a doctor who is paid by the carrier, who testifies for the carrier, and who will produce a report concluding that your bite is healing fine and that you need no further treatment. The report will be entered at trial as the carrier’s “independent” evidence. It is neither independent nor an examination in any honest sense.
Our counter: We attend every IME with you. We prepare you for the questions the doctor will be told to ask. We immediately obtain a copy of the report and, where appropriate, obtain a rebuttal opinion from your treating physician. The IME is a defense weapon, and it is one we know how to defuse.
Play 4: The social-media and surveillance surveillance
Within a week, the bar’s investigator or a private firm will check your public social media, your cell-phone geolocation, your surveillance-camera history outside the bar, and your movements since the incident. The point of the surveillance is to find a photo of you lifting something, smiling at a family event, or working out at a gym — anything that can be used at trial to argue you are not as hurt as you say. The surveillance will be presented to the jury as a single frame from a single day, stripped of context, and pitched as proof you are faking.
Our counter: Stop posting. Privacy-lock your social media. Do not delete anything (deletion is spoliation in the making), but do not post, do not accept new public followers, and do not comment publicly about the case. Tell your family the same. We will deal with the surveillance footage in discovery, not in your daily life.
Play 5: The 51% play
The defense’s number-one goal in a comparative-negligence state like Pennsylvania is to put more than half the fault on you. They will argue that you, the security guard, were the aggressor. That you threw the first punch. That your response was disproportionate. That you failed to retreat. They will look for a witness — any witness — who will give them a sliver of “he came at me first” testimony, because in their math, all they need is 51%.
Our counter: Pennsylvania’s comparative-fault statute (42 Pa.C.S. § 7102) is the rule, but it does not flip the burden to you. The defendant carries the burden of proving your fault. The CCTV, the other guards on shift, the bar’s own incident report, and the responding officers’ statements will tell the story of a working security guard doing a difficult job. We collect the proof before the defense gets to pick which version of events to argue.
Play 6: The indemnity shell game between the bar and the City
Here is the move that the bar’s insurer and the City’s lawyers coordinate behind closed doors. The bar’s insurer will argue the bite is the act of the officer, not the bar, and therefore the City’s self-insurance (or the officer’s personal coverage) should pay. The City will argue the bite is the act of a third party — the off-duty officer acting outside the scope of employment — and the bar’s premises coverage should pay. The two carriers will fight each other over who pays first, and the practical effect is that the injured guard waits.
Our counter: We sue all three. We do not let the carriers’ indemnity dispute become your problem. We name the off-duty officer individually, the bar, and the City of Philadelphia in the same complaint. Whichever carrier ends up paying, you have three sources of recovery, three sets of coverage limits, and three separate pressure points to move the case to a number that reflects the harm.
What Your Case Is Worth
We will give you a real range after we review your medical records, the ED chart, the wound photographs, the lost wages, and the long-term prognosis. Until then, here is the honest framing drawn from the case value framework our firm uses for these cases.
Floor: $35,000. This is the realistic value of a minor puncture that heals cleanly, with a single tetanus shot, no infection, no scarring, and a short recovery. It pays medical bills and a small amount for pain and suffering.
Ceiling: $175,000. This is the realistic ceiling of a case with a documented bite wound, infection or scarring, psychological injury, time lost from work, and strong proof that the bar over-served a visibly intoxicated patron under Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop statute. The ceiling moves up sharply if the case includes punitive damages against the bar or the officer.
The medical-injury anchor in this case is low. The outrage anchor is high. The Dram Shop multiplier is what takes the case from the floor toward the ceiling — because the bar’s liquor-liability policy has limits that are an order of magnitude higher than the medical specials, and a Pennsylvania jury is comfortable with a verdict that punishes a bar for pouring drinks into someone the bartender could see was already gone. A bite by an off-duty police officer on a security guard working the door is exactly the fact pattern that pushes a Pennsylvania jury toward the upper end of the range.
For a bite injury specifically, the medical dimension is more serious than it looks. Human bites carry infection rates that exceed almost any other mammalian bite. The oral flora of an adult — streptococcus, staphylococcus, eikenella, and others — are inoculated directly into the wound. Hepatitis B and, in some cases, hepatitis C transmission has been documented in bite injuries. The wound requires careful antibiotic management, follow-up visits, and sometimes surgical closure. The tetanus record you already have is the first piece of the medical evidence; it is not the last.
The First 72 Hours
If you are the security guard, here is the order of operations.
Today. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free and we do not get paid unless we win. Do not give a recorded statement to anyone. Do not accept any check, any release, any “we just want to make this right” offer.
Tomorrow. We send a preservation-of-evidence letter to the bar (CCTV, POS data, incident report, employee schedules, prior-incident history), a separate notice to the Philadelphia Police Department (body-worn camera, IA file, use-of-force report), a notice to the City of Philadelphia’s Risk Management Division (the PSTCA notice of claim — the 6-month clock is already running), and a preservation request to the hospital for the complete emergency-department chart and wound photographs.
This week. We get your full medical records, the wound photographs, your lost-wage documentation, and the names of every witness you can identify from that night.
Within 30 days. We will likely have retained an expert in human-bite wound pathology and, if the bar’s role is significant, an expert in alcohol-service standards and Dram Shop compliance.
Within 6 months. The PSTCA notice of claim to the City of Philadelphia must be on file. This is the deadline that loses the City from the case forever if missed. We calendar it the day you retain us.
Pennsylvania Law You Will Be Asked About
Here is the working list of the Pennsylvania statutes, regulations, and doctrines that govern the case, in plain English. None of this is the final word on the law in your specific case — that is what the opinion we deliver after intake is for — but this is the framework the case lives inside.
Assault and battery (common law). The civil tort. Intent to cause harmful or offensive contact, or substantial certainty of it, plus actual contact. Biting satisfies every element.
42 Pa.C.S. § 5524 — Two-year statute of limitations. The general personal-injury limitations period in Pennsylvania. Two years from the date of the bite to file suit against the officer and the bar.
42 Pa.C.S. § 7102 — Modified comparative negligence (51% bar). Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault and is barred entirely if you are 51% or more at fault. The defendant carries the burden of proof on comparative fault.
47 P.S. § 4-493 — Pennsylvania Liquor Code, Dram Shop provision. Bar’s civil liability for furnishing alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person (or a minor) when the intoxication causes death, injury, or property damage.
42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 et seq. — Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act (PSTCA). The statute that controls suits against Pennsylvania cities, counties, and other local agencies, and the eight enumerated exceptions to immunity in § 8542(b).
42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(a) — Six-month notice of claim. Mandatory written notice to the local agency within six months of the injury. Failure to file is forever barred.
42 Pa.C.S. § 8550 — Damages cap. The PSTCA imposes a $500,000 per-claimant cap on damages against the local agency, subject to a limited annual adjustment. The cap does not apply to claims against the bar or against the individual officer.
Philadelphia Police Department Directive 4.22 (Body-Worn Cameras). Governs PPD body-worn camera activation, retention, and release. Defines the preservation obligation for any officer-involved incident.
Pennsylvania Restaurant and Drinking Place Regulations (40 Pa. Code Chapter 5). Sets the operational standards for licensed bars in Pennsylvania, including server training, hours of operation, and service of visibly intoxicated persons.
Why This Case Has the Shape It Has
A bite by an off-duty police officer at a Center City bar is not a typical bar fight. It is not a typical premises case. It is a case with three distinct defendants, three distinct insurance towers, and three distinct clocks. The facts that make it strong are also the facts that make the defense’s job easier: the police connection creates an immunity question that is genuinely contested, the bite wound is medically modest, and the bar’s insurance policy may contain an assault-and-battery exclusion that the carrier will try to weaponize.
What the defense will not tell you is that the same facts cut the other way. The badge that the City leans on to deny scope-of-employment is the badge that makes a jury angry at the City. The over-service that the bar’s insurer minimizes is the same over-service that triggers Dram Shop liability and punitive damages under Pennsylvania law. The medical chart that looks “minor” on day one is the chart a human-bite pathologist will read on day ninety and tell the jury about the infection risk, the scarring, the follow-up care, and the lifelong psychological weight of being bitten by a man with the authority to arrest you.
The case is not a slam dunk. No case is. But it is a case with real evidence, real insurance, real defendants, and a real three-track structure that gives you three shots at a recovery. Most injured people take one shot and miss the other two. You do not have to.
Who We Are and How We Help
Our firm is Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm built for cases exactly like this one, where the injury is real, the evidence is fragile, and the defense is well-funded.
Ralph P. Manginello is the firm’s managing partner. He has been licensed and trying cases in courtrooms for 27+ years, including in federal court. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 1998 and his B.A. in Journalism & Public Relations from UT Austin. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which is why the first thing he does on a case is collect the documents — the way a reporter would, not the way an adjuster would. He speaks Spanish. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. He is Italian-American, a Houston native, and the kind of trial lawyer who returns his own phone calls.
Lupe Peña is an associate attorney with the firm. He is a former insurance-defense attorney, which means he spent years inside the rooms where insurance adjusters, defense counsel, and claims-management software decided how to value, delay, and deny claims exactly like yours. He knows the playbook from the inside. He now uses that knowledge for the injured person. He is fully fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. He is a third-generation Texan with roots to the King Ranch, and a graduate of South Texas College of Law Houston and Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio.
When you call our firm with a case like this one, what actually happens is this. We run a real intake — not a screening call, not a call-center handoff. We map the three defendants, the three insurance towers, the three clocks, and the evidence that is dying. We identify the witnesses, the medical records, the CCTV, the body-worn camera, and the Dram Shop records we need to preserve and we preserve them the same week. We calendar the PSTCA six-month notice the same day. We tell you honestly what the case is worth in a range, and we tell you what the case is likely to be worth after we have the full evidence in hand. We work on contingency — you do not pay us a cent unless we win money for you. The fee is 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. Free consultation. 24/7 live staff. Hablamos Español.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We can tell you what we can do, and we can tell you what the law in Pennsylvania permits. We cannot tell you what a particular insurance adjuster, a particular City lawyer, or a particular Philadelphia jury will do. We can tell you that the work we do in the first 30 days of a case like this one is the work that determines the rest of the case, and that the work begins with a phone call.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The contingency means you do not owe us anything if we do not win. We work with local Pennsylvania trial counsel on cases in the Commonwealth, and we will put the right lawyer in the right courtroom for your case. You can read more about our law practice areas, learn about Ralph and Lupe, or contact us directly. If you have already been contacted by an insurance adjuster or by the City of Philadelphia’s Risk Management Division, do not respond to them before you talk to us. Call us first. We will tell you what to say and what not to say, in English or in Spanish.
The bite already happened. What happens next is up to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
I was the security guard who was bitten. Do I really have a case against the bar and the City, or just against the officer who bit me?
You have potential cases against all three. The bite itself is the personal claim against the off-duty officer. The bar is responsible both for negligent security (it hired you to keep the room safe and it failed to keep the room safe from the off-duty officer) and under the Pennsylvania Dram Shop statute (it continued to serve a patron who was visibly intoxicated, and that intoxication is a substantial factor in your injury). The City of Philadelphia is potentially responsible under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act if the off-duty officer was acting within the scope of his employment. The three defendants are not substitutes for one another; they are three separate lanes, each with its own insurance and its own recovery.
What is the Pennsylvania Dram Shop Act and how does it apply to a bar bite case?
Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop Act is 47 P.S. § 4-493. It makes it unlawful for a licensed bar to sell, furnish, or give alcohol to any person who is visibly intoxicated, and it creates civil liability when the illegal sale results in injury. In a bite case, the elements are that the bar served the off-duty officer, that the officer was visibly intoxicated at the time he was served, that the bar knew or should have known of the visible intoxication, and that the intoxication was a substantial factor in causing the bite. The bar’s own point-of-sale records, the bartender’s testimony, the bar’s incident history, and the surveillance video are the evidence that proves the visible intoxication and continued service.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit in Pennsylvania for an assault and battery case?
Two years from the date of the injury. That is the general personal-injury statute of limitations in Pennsylvania, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5524. The two-year clock applies to your claim against the off-duty officer and against the bar. The Dram Shop claim against the bar is also subject to a two-year limitations period. There is one shorter clock you must also respect: the notice of claim to the City of Philadelphia under the PSTCA must be filed within six months of the date of the injury. Miss that six-month window and the City is barred from the case forever.
What is the PSTCA notice of claim and why is it so important?
The Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 et seq., is the Pennsylvania statute that controls lawsuits against cities, counties, and other local government units. Under 42 Pa.C.S. § 8542(a), a claimant must present a written notice of claim to the appropriate office of the local agency within six months of the date of the injury. The notice must contain the time, place, and circumstances of the injury. If the claimant fails to file the notice within the six-month window, the claim against the local agency is forever barred. This is the single most important deadline in the case and the one most often missed by injured people who do not yet have a lawyer.
I was working as a security guard when this happened. Do I also have a workers’ compensation claim?
Almost certainly yes. As a working security guard at the bar, you are an employee, and the bar’s workers’ compensation carrier is responsible for your medical bills and a portion of your lost wages. Workers’ compensation in Pennsylvania is no-fault. You are entitled to medical treatment and wage-loss benefits regardless of fault, but in exchange the workers’ comp system is the exclusive remedy against the bar for your lost wages and medical bills. That does not bar your claim against the off-duty officer, the City, or the bar’s liquor-liability carrier under the Dram Shop Act. It is one more lane in the case, and the lanes are designed to work together, not against each other. We will help you navigate the workers’ comp process and the civil case together so that one does not undercut the other.
The bar’s insurance adjuster already called me. What should I say?
Do not give a recorded statement. Tell the adjuster you have retained counsel (us) and that all future communication should be directed to us. Do not agree to a recorded phone call, do not sign a medical authorization the carrier hands you, and do not accept a check of any amount. The adjuster’s job in the first conversation is to lock in your version of events, your medical history, and your lowest pain-and-suffering number. Our job is to make sure none of that happens until we have the evidence in hand and the case is fully understood. If you have already given a recorded statement, call us — we can still protect the case, but the sooner the better.
What if the off-duty officer says I was the aggressor and I was more than half at fault?
Pennsylvania follows modified comparative negligence under 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102. The defendant has the burden of proving that you were more than 50% at fault for the incident. If the officer cannot meet that burden, you recover, with any percentage of fault attributed to you reducing your recovery by that percentage. The bar’s surveillance video, the other security guards on shift, the bartender’s account, and the body-worn camera footage of any responding officers are the evidence that determines the comparative-fault fight. We collect that evidence before the defense gets to pick which version of the night to argue. Biting is not a defensive act. The argument that a working security guard doing his job was the more-than-half cause of being bitten is a hard argument for the defense to win on a complete record.
How does the City argue the off-duty officer was not acting within the scope of his employment?
The City will argue that the officer was off duty, off the clock, and acting for his own personal purposes, and that the City therefore has no vicarious liability under the PSTCA. The argument has some force. The counter is that the institutional authority of a sworn police officer does not turn off when the uniform does, that an officer who identifies himself as police in a confrontation is invoking the power of his office, and that Pennsylvania courts have held off-duty police conduct to be within the scope of employment on facts less favorable than yours. The question is fact-specific and reaches a jury. The City has the burden of proving that the officer was outside the scope. We do not concede the question, and we do not let the City keep the issue away from the jury by filing the case in the wrong court or in the wrong name.
Can I sue the bar’s owner, the management company, the building owner, and the security company that hired me separately?
Potentially, yes. A commercial bar in Center City is usually owned by one entity, operated by another, and leased from a third. The security company that hired you may also be a defendant in addition to the bar itself. Each layer of the ownership and management structure is a separate insurance policy and a separate pocket of recovery. Whether to add each layer depends on the specifics of who owned what, who managed what, and who employed whom on the night of the incident. The investigation we run in the first 30 days of the case is designed to identify every pocket of insurance, every ownership entity, and every legal theory — including negligent security against the property owner and vicarious liability through the management chain. See our practice areas for how we approach this kind of multi-defendant commercial case.
How much will I have to pay a lawyer, and when?
You pay us nothing unless we win. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes all the way to a verdict. The consultation is free. There is no retainer. There is no hourly billing. We advance the case costs — filing fees, expert fees, deposition transcripts, exhibit preparation, and trial exhibits — and we are reimbursed out of the recovery at the end. If we do not win, you owe us nothing for fees or costs. We work on contingency because injured people should not have to pay a lawyer to recover what an insurance company owes them, and because the case is strongest when the lawyer and the client are aligned in the same outcome. Contact us to start the intake.
What if I am undocumented or am worried about my immigration status?
Pennsylvania personal-injury law does not condition your right to recover on your immigration status. Your civil rights under Pennsylvania law are the same as anyone else’s. We do not ask about immigration status at intake except to the extent it is necessary to identify the right venue and the right local counsel for the case. Conversations with us are confidential. If you speak Spanish, we conduct the intake in Spanish. Hablamos Español. The bar’s insurance carrier will not be told your immigration status, and we will not allow the defense to use it against you in the case.
How long will the case take to resolve?
Honest answer: a bite case with a Dram Shop component and a PSTCA claim against the City typically resolves in 9 to 18 months from the date of retention, depending on the defendant’s willingness to settle and the complexity of the medical evidence. The City of Philadelphia’s Risk Management Division is generally slower to engage than a private insurance carrier. The bar’s CGL and liquor-liability carriers usually want to settle within the first 9 to 12 months. The off-duty officer’s personal carrier will likely take the longest and may push the case to the eve of trial before engaging seriously. We do not promise a date. We do promise that we will move the case as fast as the evidence and the law allow, that we will keep you informed at every step, and that we will not settle the case without your approval.
What happens if the bar’s insurance policy has an assault-and-battery exclusion?
This is a real issue, and it is exactly why we sue the bar under multiple theories. An assault-and-battery exclusion in the bar’s commercial general-liability policy will typically not apply to the bar’s own negligent act of over-serving a visibly intoxicated patron under the Dram Shop statute. Two different policies, two different insurers, two different sets of coverage arguments. The bar’s commercial general-liability carrier will try to deny coverage under the exclusion. The bar’s liquor-liability carrier owes a separate policy and a separate duty. In many of these cases, the liquor-liability carrier is the realistic source of the full settlement, and we build the case to reach that policy from the first day. Our insurance claim practice is built for exactly this kind of multi-carrier, multi-policy fight.
The officer received a commendation for de-escalation. Does that matter?
It matters in two ways. First, it is direct evidence that the officer had specific training in de-escalation and that his employer (the City) recognized that training as important. That is admissible on the question of what the standard of care was, what the officer was trained to do, and what the City expected him to do. If a person trained and recognized for de-escalation instead used his teeth, the gap between the training and the conduct is the foundation of a punitive-damages argument and a Monell-style failure-to-train claim against the City. Second, it is admissible to rebut any defense argument that the security guard provoked the bite. A person trained and recognized for de-escalation is a person who had a documented skill set for handling exactly this kind of confrontation, and a jury will hear that.
I am still in pain and I am not sure how bad this is going to be. Should I settle fast?
No. The medical record on a bite injury is incomplete at 30 days. Infection risk, scarring, nerve involvement, psychological injury, and follow-up surgical or dental work may not be visible at the first emergency-department visit. Settling fast is settling blind. The bar’s insurance carrier is offering a fast check precisely because the long-term picture is not yet in the record. The single biggest mistake injured people make in bite and assault cases is signing a release for a small number before the medical record is complete. We will tell you when the medical record is mature enough to evaluate a settlement — and we will not let the carrier rush you before that point.
Can I be fired or disciplined for filing a claim against the bar where I work?
Pennsylvania law prohibits retaliation against an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim. The same anti-retaliation principles apply to other claims arising out of the employment relationship. If you are worried about your job, talk to us before you do anything that could be characterized as a resignation or a settlement. Your job is not a card the bar gets to play to keep you from exercising your rights.
What if the off-duty officer is convicted in criminal court? Does that help my civil case?
It can, but the criminal case is not a substitute for the civil case. A criminal conviction is admissible in the civil case under Pennsylvania law as evidence of the officer’s conduct and is powerful support for punitive damages. But a criminal acquittal is not admissible against you, and you do not need a criminal conviction to win a civil case. The civil case has a lower burden of proof (preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt), is decided by a different factfinder, and is the only path to monetary compensation for your injuries. We work with the criminal process without letting it dictate the timing or the strategy of the civil case.
What is the first thing I should do right now?
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We work on contingency, and we do not get paid unless we win. We will walk you through what the bar’s adjuster is going to ask for, what the City’s notice of claim requires, what the medical record should look like, and what the realistic range of recovery is for your case. We do not have a Spanish menu and an English menu — we have one intake, in whatever language you speak. Hablamos Español. The first 30 days of a case like this one are the case. Call now.
Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We work with local Pennsylvania trial counsel on cases in the Commonwealth. Free consultation. Contingency: 33.33% before trial / 40% at trial. No fee unless we win. 1-888-ATTY-911. Contact us.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The information in this page is legal information, not legal advice, and is provided for residents of Pennsylvania who have been injured and are considering their options.