An estimated 4.5 million dog bites occur in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That is approximately 800,000 victims requiring medical attention.
In this regard, children are at the highest risk of serious dog bite injuries. In particular, children aged 5 to 9 are more likely than adults to require hospitalization.
From the law’s perspective, victims are allowed to receive compensation from the owner of the dog that bit them. But the statutory laws vary greatly from state to state. While some states hold the owner liable irrespective of the circumstances, other states require the owner to be aware of the risk posed by the dog.
Understanding your legal rights after a dog bite incident can help you protect your health, preserve important evidence, and pursue the compensation you may be entitled to under your state’s laws.
The Strict Liability vs. One-Bite Distinction
The most important legal question in any dog bite case is which liability standard applies in the state where the bite occurred. The answer determines how easy or difficult it is to establish the dog owner’s responsibility.
Strict Liability States
In most cases in states like California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and New York, strict liability is used for dog bites. In strict liability cases, the dog’s owner is liable for all injuries that result from the attack even if he has never attacked before or did not know that his dog was vicious at all.
It means that the victim does not have to prove negligence but only that the dog attacked him when he was on a legal piece of ground. California Civil Code § 3342, for instance, states that a dog owner is liable in all situations when the attack happened on public grounds or when the victim was legally present on private property.
One-Bite Rule States
While many more states adopt strict liability for dog bites, there are fewer states that use what is known as the “one-bite rule,” a common law doctrine that confines owner liability to cases wherein the owner was either aware or should have been aware that his dog was prone to aggression.
However, the one-bite rule does entail proving that the owner had knowledge of his dog’s aggression beforehand.
Several states combine elements of both approaches, imposing strict liability for bites specifically but allowing negligence claims for other dog-related injuries such as knockdowns.
The Insurance Information Institute’s dog bite liability overview provides a current reference for how insurers analyze liability exposure by state, reflecting the standards that govern actual claim resolution.
The firm’s overview of Bridgeport dog bite lawyer Harold L. Rosnick and Miller, Rosnick, D’Amico, August & Butler notes that if you or a loved one has been injured due to an animal attack/knockdown or dog bite, it is important to reach out to a knowledgeable, committed, and experienced injury attorney to understand the extent of your injury and how much you may be compensated under law.
What Constitutes Provocation and How It Affects Claims
Strict liability is not a hard-and-fast rule. In most strict liability laws, there is an exception for provocation: an owner will not be strictly liable if the person attacked the dog first. Provocation is evaluated by courts taking into account all the relevant circumstances and the actions of the person leading up to the attack.
The claim of provocation is common in defense and insurance circles, especially if the victim had been in contact with the dog just prior to the attack. Provisions of the law in most states require that the provocation be based on what a reasonable person could do and not the technical information of a young child.
Another defense strategy is trespassing. Some strict liability laws have made provisions that the law will cover only those individuals who were within the property without breaking any laws.
Where to Look for Compensation
Homeowner’s and Renter’s Insurance
The first thing that an injured person will consider for seeking financial relief from a dog bite is the dog owner’s insurance. Usually, the typical homeowners’ or renter’s insurance policy will offer about $100,000 to $300,000 worth of personal liability insurance coverage.
However, some insurance carriers will not cover a dog bite claim by excluding particular types of dogs from being covered or even those that have a history of biting people. If there is such a denial by the insurer, then a case may proceed in a lawsuit filed against the owner of the dog himself.
Umbrella Policies
Dog owners who have umbrella insurance have another liability insurance above the homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, usually worth at least $1 million or more. If there is any serious injury, scarring, or physical impairment to someone due to a dog, it is the umbrella insurance that can give some compensation.
Premises Liability When a Third Party Is Involved
Where there is a bite in a commercial setting, a business, an apartment complex, or a park, the property owner/manager who knew of the presence of a potentially dangerous dog may be liable due to their failure to address the problem.
There have been many successful lawsuits where the property owners were made to pay compensation for knowing about the presence of the aggressive animal.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks the epidemiology of dog bites through emergency department data from hospitals, estimates about 1,000 people per day are brought to hospitals for treatment for dog bites.
The CDC dog bite prevention resources include occupational exposure data for workers such as letter carriers and delivery drivers who face elevated bite risk.
What Dog Bite Claims Can Include
The measure of damages in a dog bite case is not limited to the immediate medical bill. Here’s a full scope of recoverable damages for dog bites:
- Emergency room and urgent care costs. This includes wound cleaning, stitches, imaging, and rabies prophylaxis if required.
- Follow-up medical treatment. Part of that is plastic surgery or reconstructive procedures for facial injuries or significant scarring.
- Physical and occupational therapy if the bite caused lasting impairment to a hand, arm, or other functional area
- Psychological counseling for post-traumatic stress, anxiety, or fear of dogs that develops after a severe attack
- Lost income for work missed during recovery and, in cases of permanent impairment, diminished future earning capacity
- Pain and suffering, including compensation for the physical experience of the attack and its aftermath
- Permanent disfigurement, which courts and juries weight heavily, particularly for facial injuries in children
Injury to the face of a child is an important factor in damages since scars will last much longer for a child compared to a person who is an adult.
Factors taken into account include the nature of the injury, whether there will be future need for surgery to revise the scars, visibility of the scar, and the age of the injured individual. The American Academy of Pediatrics indicates that children in the age bracket of 5 to 9 years constitute the most dangerous group for dog attacks.
The Documentation That Supports a Claim
A dog bite claim is built on a medical and factual record that must be assembled promptly. Evidence that is collected in the days immediately following the bite is almost always stronger than the same evidence collected weeks later.
- Photographs of the wound taken at the scene and at each medical appointment, capturing the progression of bruising, swelling, and healing
- Medical records from every provider who treated the injury, including emergency care, follow-up visits, and any specialist consultations
- Animal control and police reports, which document the bite officially and may reflect the dog’s prior bite history if that information exists in local records
- Witness information from anyone who observed the attack or the dog’s behavior before the attack occurred
- Documentation of any prior complaints or incidents involving the same dog, which is relevant both to liability and to the dog owner’s duty to warn
A report filed with animal control can be done for two reasons. First, it makes sure that an official record is created, and there is a possibility that further investigation may lead to discovering the previous history of the bite or any negligence on the part of the owner that may not have been found otherwise.
The information about the AVMA guidelines regarding bite prevention and treatment includes information on how bite severity is determined and medical treatment options.