New York Dog Bite Law

Since April 2025, a New York Dog Bite Claim Has Two Routes

New York dog bite law now lets a person hurt by a dog sue the owner in two ways: strict liability if the owner knew the dog was dangerous, and ordinary negligence if the owner was careless.

The Court of Appeals opened the negligence route in Flanders v. Goodfellow on April 17, 2025, overruling a 2006 decision that had closed it.

An owner whose dog is found dangerous under state law is also strictly liable for the victim's medical costs.

Your own share of fault, if any, reduces the recovery but does not bar it.

You generally have three years to sue, and a child who was bitten has until three years after turning 18.

Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.

How Flanders v. Goodfellow Opened Negligence Claims Against Dog Owners

Rebecca Flanders, a postal carrier, was delivering a package to a house in Onondaga County when the owners' dog, about 70 pounds, slipped past the owner at the open door and lunged at her. The bite tore a muscle in her shoulder, which took several surgeries and left permanent scarring.

The lower courts threw out her case under Bard v. Jahnke, a 2006 decision that allowed only one kind of claim against a dog owner: strict liability, which required proof the owner knew the dog had vicious propensities. A unanimous Court of Appeals overruled Bard "to the extent that it bars negligence liability for harm caused by domestic animals," reinstated both of her claims, and said a plaintiff may plead strict liability, negligence, or both.^[1]

The court did not find the owners negligent. It sent that question back to the trial court, and the ordinary elements of negligence still have to be proved.

• Before April 2025. A dog with no known history of aggression usually meant no claim, however careless the owner was that day.
• After April 2025. An owner who left the door open with a large dog loose, walked it off leash on a busy sidewalk, or ignored a broken fence can be sued for that carelessness.

New York City's Health Code requires a dog in a public place to be on a leash no longer than six feet.^[2] Before Flanders, the Court of Appeals had treated a leash-law violation as irrelevant to a dog-bite claim; with the negligence route reopened, it can again be offered as evidence of carelessness, though appellate courts have not yet ruled on that point since 2025.

A bite from a dog that never bit before is now a case worth looking at, which before 2025 it often was not.

The Vicious-Propensity Rule and the Evidence That Shows the Owner Knew

The strict-liability route survives Flanders unchanged. An owner who knew or should have known that a dog had vicious propensities is liable for the harm those propensities cause, without any proof of carelessness. The Court of Appeals put it plainly in 2004: the rule "does not entitle dog owners to an automatic 'one free bite.'"^[3]

• Earlier attacks or bites the owner knew about
• Growling, snapping, or baring teeth, even with no prior bite
• How the owner chose to restrain the dog, and why
• Keeping the dog as a guard dog, which can support an inference that the owner knew

Barking alone, or the fact that a dog was kept in a fenced yard, is not enough. In Flanders, two postal workers' accounts of the dog growling, snarling, and slamming into the windows were enough to put the owners' knowledge before a jury. Neighbors, delivery drivers, mail carriers, a veterinarian's notes, and prior complaints to the Health Department are where that history usually turns up, and it fades as people move and records age.

Agriculture and Markets Law § 123 and a Dangerous-Dog Finding

State law has its own process for a dog that attacks. A person who saw the attack, or an adult acting for a child who was bitten, can file a sworn complaint with a local judge or justice, and a dog control or police officer who believes a dog is dangerous must start the proceeding. A hearing follows within five days, and the dog has to be proved dangerous by clear and convincing evidence.^[4]

New York City runs a parallel process through the Health Department, with hearings at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, and its definition of a dangerous dog is broader: one that menaces, threatens, attacks, or bites a person lawfully present. A Health Department bite report or a police report is treated as prima facie evidence that a dog is dangerous, which is one more reason to report a bite the day it happens.

When a Landlord Answers for a Tenant's Dog

A landlord is not the dog's owner, so the owner's strict liability does not pass to it. A landlord can be liable when it knew or should have known the dog was vicious and had enough control over the premises to have it removed or confined, a test New York's appellate courts apply to dogs a tenant brought in after the lease began.^[5] A landlord who leases to a tenant knowing the tenant has a vicious dog, and takes no steps to protect people on the property, can be liable in negligence as well.

Flanders said nothing about landlords, so these rules stand as they were. When the building belongs to NYCHA, the claim against the Housing Authority needs a notice of claim within 90 days, as our page on injury claims against NYCHA explains.

Homeowners Policies Usually Pay a New York Dog Bite Claim

Most dog bite claims are paid by the owner's homeowners insurance, not out of the owner's pocket. Since 2022, Insurance Law § 3421 has barred homeowners insurers from refusing, cancelling, raising rates on, or limiting coverage for a policy based solely on a dog's breed, although an insurer can still act on a formal dangerous-dog designation.^[6]

The policy is the first thing to identify, because its limits and its exclusions shape the claim from the start. Our national page on how homeowners insurance handles dog bite claims covers the adjuster's side of it.

Every state treats these cases differently, and New York's rule changed more recently than most, as the state-by-state table on our page comparing the one-bite rule and strict liability shows.

Three Years to Sue, and Until Age 21 for a Bitten Child

• An adult: three years from the bite under CPLR § 214(5).
• A child: the deadline is extended to three years after the child turns 18, so generally until age 21.^[7]
• A City or NYCHA defendant: a notice of claim within 90 days and a lawsuit within one year and 90 days, and a child's age does not stop the 90-day clock.

Fault is shared under pure comparative negligence, so a person found partly at fault for a bite recovers the rest. The 2026 rule that bars recovery when a claimant is more at fault than the defendant applies only to motor vehicle claims, as our page on how New York now splits fault explains.^[8]

Most of the bites we see on children land on the face, because a child stands at the height of the dog's head. A child's scarring claim is valued across the years they will grow up with it.

Any settlement for a child, at any amount, has to be approved by a court, and the money is held until the child turns 18, which our page on the infant compromise process walks through.