About

Who pays for a dog bite depends on the state. In some, a statute makes the owner liable for almost any bite; in others the injured person must prove the owner knew the dog was dangerous; a few sit in between. Deadlines to sue run from one year to six. Search for any of this and the results are mostly law-firm pages that rarely cite a statute, never say when they were checked, and often disagree with each other about which states are which. This site gives one careful, cited, dated answer for each state.

We cover 51 jurisdictions: the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each has two pages: the law for people who were bitten (liability, defenses, shared fault, deadlines, damages, landlords, insurance) and the dangerous-dog law for owners (bite reports, rabies observation, hearings, euthanasia and criminal penalties). National guides compare the states and explain the steps after a bite.

How we research and cite

Every state page starts from primary sources: the statute text on the legislature's own website, the state's administrative code for rabies and bite-reporting rules, the health department's own guidance, and the appellate decisions that decide questions the statutes leave open, such as the one-bite rule or a landlord's liability. Each rule on the page carries a numbered citation to the source it comes from, and each source shows the date we opened it.

Law-firm blogs and legal-encyclopedia sites are used only to find a statute or a case, never as a source. Where they contradict the statute, the statute wins. Where a question is genuinely unsettled in a state, the page says so instead of guessing. National figures come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Insurance Information Institute and other named primary sources, each dated.

Tables that compare states, and the claim checker, are built from the same researched state data, so a rule is never typed twice in two different ways.

Keeping pages current

Legislatures amend dog bite and dangerous-dog statutes regularly, and courts refine the rules. Each state page shows its review date. We recheck pages after legislative sessions, when a reader reports a change, and at least once a year.

What we write about

• Who is liable: Strict liability statutes, the one-bite rule, provocation and trespass, landlords, police dogs and bites at work.
• Bite claims: What to do after a dog bite, filing deadlines, insurance claims, how injuries are valued, bites to children and attacks on pets, with the data behind each.
• Dog owners: When your dog bites someone.

What we are not

We are not lawyers, we do not represent anyone, and we cannot assess your case. Nothing on this site creates a lawyer-client relationship. A deadline or a defense can turn on facts we can't see, so before you rely on a rule, read the source we cite or talk to a lawyer licensed in the state. Each state page links to that state's official lawyer referral service where one exists.

Independence and funding

State Dog Bite Law is funded by advertising, shown separately from the content. We do not sell leads, we do not take referral fees, and no law firm, insurer or advertiser pays to be mentioned or has any say over what we publish.

Corrections

If a rule, deadline or citation on this site is wrong, please tell us through the contact page, ideally with the statute or decision that shows the right answer. We recheck reported pages and correct them.

The company that publishes State Dog Bite Law is identified in our privacy policy. You can reach us at [email protected].