Attorney Advertising
California Dog Bite & Attack Attorneys
Los Angeles Dog Bite Lawyer
California law can hold a dog’s owner responsible for a bite even if the dog had never bitten anyone before. The Law Offices of Burg & Brock investigate ownership, how the incident happened, what insurance is available, and the treatment, scarring and other losses the injury caused.
Free consultation. No attorney’s fee unless we obtain a recovery for you.
Cameron Yadidi Brock
- Role
- Founding Attorney
- Bar
- California #183112
- Since
- Practicing 1996
- 1996Practicing since
- Sherman OaksLos Angeles County office
- No FeeUnless there is a recovery
- FreeConfidential case review
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Reviewed by Cameron Yadidi BrockFounding Attorney, Law Offices of Burg & Brock · California State Bar #183112 · Admitted 1996
The Short Answer
Do I Have a California Dog Bite Claim?
Potentially. California’s dog bite statute makes an owner liable for a qualifying bite whether or not the dog had ever bitten anyone before, and whether or not the owner had any reason to think it might.
That is genuinely different from most states, and also narrower than it sounds. The statute does not decide the case on its own: ownership, where you were, what happened and what the injury cost all still need evidence. The sections below set out both halves honestly.
Medical care first
A dog bite is worth having looked at by a healthcare professional, who can assess wound care, infection risk, tetanus status and whether any rabies assessment is needed. That is a medical judgment, and not one this page or any law firm can make for you.
On rabies, since that is what people arrive frightened about: Los Angeles County tells physicians that bites from local dogs and cats are low risk, and names bats as the animals that routinely carry it here. The CDC says the United States has been free of dog rabies since 2007. Clinicians still assess it case by case. The county publishes a handout on what to do after an animal bite.
The Statute
Is a Dog Owner Strictly Liable for a Bite in California?
For a qualifying bite, yes. California Civil Code section 3342 makes a dog’s owner liable for damages when the dog bites someone in a public place, or someone lawfully in a private place, including the owner’s own property.
It applies regardless of the dog’s former viciousness and regardless of the owner’s knowledge of it. That clause is why the answer to the next question is what it is.
Does a dog get one free bite in California?
No, not for a claim under section 3342. An owner does not escape liability because the dog had never bitten or growled at anyone. The absence of a prior incident is not a defense. Everything else still has to be established: ownership, the bite, where you were, and what it cost you.
What strict liability does mean
- No prior bite has to be proved
- No prior viciousness has to be proved
- The owner’s knowledge of any danger need not be proved
- The claim does not depend on carelessness
What it does not mean
- Every dog-related injury is covered. It is a bite statute
- Everyone connected to the dog is automatically liable
- Evidence is unnecessary
- Damages are established automatically
- Nothing the injured person did is ever relevant
Proving the Case
What Must Be Proven in a California Dog Bite Case?
A claimant must generally establish what CACI No. 463, California’s official jury instruction for the dog bite statute, sets out. Its verdict form, VF-409, puts it to a jury in this order.
01
The biteDid the defendant’s dog bite you? They must have owned the dog.
02
Where you wereWere you in a public place, or lawfully on private property, when bitten?
03
CausationWas the dog a substantial factor in causing your harm? The instruction says the dog, not the bite.
04
DamagesWhat damages, if any, did you suffer as a result of the bite?
What you do not have to prove
- That the dog had bitten anyone before
- That the dog had shown viciousness before
- That the owner knew the dog might bite
- That the owner was careless
None of that makes a bite automatic compensation. One detail from the supporting authority matters more than it sounds: the skin does not have to be broken, so a crushing bite through clothing that leaves deep bruising still counts.
SourcesCalifornia Civil Code section 3342, California Legislative Information · Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions (CACI), 2026 edition, Nos. 463 and VF-409 (PDF, courts.ca.gov)
An Important Distinction
What If the Dog Injured Me Without Biting Me?
Then section 3342 is probably not your route, and a page that tells you otherwise is doing you a disservice.
The statute applies to a person bitten by the dog. Not injured. Not knocked down. Bitten. A California appellate court said so in Drake v. Dean, where a dog knocked a visitor down and broke her hip: because it did not bite her, the statute had no application, and the judgment was reversed for failing to instruct the jury on ordinary negligence.
A bite
- Governing law
- Civil Code section 3342, where its requirements are met (CACI No. 463).
- Prior history
- Not required.
- Owner’s knowledge
- Not required.
An injury without a bite
- Examples
- A dog knocks someone down. Someone falls getting away. A scratch, or contact that is not a bite.
- Governing law
- Ordinary negligence, mainly. A dangerous-propensity claim under CACI No. 462 is another route, as is a broken local animal-control ordinance.
- What changes
- Negligence asks whether the owner used reasonable care. A dangerous-propensity claim asks something harder: whether the owner knew or should have known the animal was unusually dangerous.
Does the dog’s dangerous behavior matter?
Not to the statutory bite claim, which is the point of section 3342. It can matter a great deal to the other theories. CACI No. 462 covers the common-law claim against someone who owned, kept or controlled an animal with an unusually dangerous nature, and its third element is the owner’s knowledge of that nature.
What about leash rules?
There is no statewide California leash law. Restraint rules come from city and county ordinances, so which applies depends on where the incident happened: unincorporated Los Angeles County has its own County Code provision, the City of Los Angeles a separate municipal one, other cities their own. Breaking one is a separate question from the elements of section 3342. It does not establish a claim under the statute, and in a negligence case it creates only a presumption the defendant can rebut.
A serious injury with no bite may still be someone’s responsibility. It is a different claim, and it needs building as one from the start.
Location
What If I Was Bitten on Private Property?
The statute covers a person bitten while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, including the property of the dog’s owner.
Being bitten at the owner’s own home does not defeat a claim. Someone there by invitation, or performing a duty imposed by law, is generally covered, and the statute names duties imposed by United States postal regulations, writing mail carriers into the protected class rather than out of it.
Someone trespassing may not meet the lawful-presence requirement. Whether a particular visitor was lawfully present is a question of fact this page cannot answer for your situation.
Defenses
What If the Owner Says I Provoked the Dog?
Strict liability does not mean every defense disappears. A lot of published material says it does, and someone relying on that can be caught out.
Section 3342 contains no general provocation defense. The authority behind CACI No. 463 records that assumption of the risk and contributory negligence may still be asserted under the statute, so what you were doing can become part of the case even though the owner’s carelessness does not have to be proved.
That is not the same as ordinary conduct counting against you. The California cases are about kicking, teasing or otherwise inviting the injury. In one, a lunch-truck driver who had fed a chained watchdog daily for years was bitten and still recovered, the court treating provocation as a question of fact. What gets examined is the sequence: what happened first, what warnings existed, what the dog did, and the age of the person bitten.
Responsibility
Who Can Be Responsible for a Dog Bite or Attack?
The owner is the statutory defendant. Anyone else is a separate question, on a different legal footing, and the difference is not a technicality.
Landlords — a standard that is often overstated
A landlord who does not own the dog is not a defendant under the dog bite statute, which places liability on the owner. The Judicial Council added a dedicated landlord instruction in July 2025, CACI No. 1013, and it sits in the premises liability series rather than with the animal instructions. Its elements are a negligence structure: knowledge, the ability to have taken reasonable measures, a failure to take them, and causation.
The knowledge test is the part most pages get wrong. It asks whether the landlord knew or must have known the dog was dangerous. That is actual knowledge, provable by circumstances, but it is not the looser “should have known” test, and California puts no duty on a landlord to go looking. An owner who never handed over possession is different again: where a homeowner stayed in control of the property, California courts have applied ordinary negligence.
Police and military dogs — narrower than either side claims
Section 3342 has its own provisions for dogs used by a government agency in police or military work. They are conditional, not a blanket immunity: they limit only an action under the statute’s liability subdivision, only against a governmental agency, and only where the bite happened in one of the specific situations the statute lists.
Two conditions narrow them further. The protection is expressly withheld where the injured person was not a party to, a participant in, or suspected of, the acts that prompted the dog being used. And it applies only where the agency has adopted a written policy on the necessary and appropriate use of a dog for that work, which has to be investigated rather than assumed.
So neither “all police dog bites are exempt” nor “police dog bites are always compensable” is accurate. A public-agency claim also runs on much shorter deadlines, covered below, and needs specific attorney review quickly.
SourcesCalifornia Civil Code section 3342 · CACI Nos. 462, 463 and 1013 (2026 edition, PDF)
Children
What If a Child Was Bitten by a Dog?
The CDC says children are more likely than adults to be bitten and that their injuries tend to be more severe. In Los Angeles County’s reported-bite data, published in 2011 from 2009 figures, the highest rates were in children aged five to nine and under four.
The CDC also says most bites affecting young children happen during everyday activities and while interacting with familiar dogs. Not a stray. A dog the family knows.
A child’s case often needs care over a longer horizon than an adult’s: current treatment, treatment still to come, scarring and how it may change as a child grows, and psychological effects where a clinician has identified them. None of that is assumed; it comes from the records.
California also judges children differently when an owner argues the child was at fault. A child is held to the care expected of a child of the same age, intelligence and experience, and California authority holds a child under five cannot be contributorily negligent as a matter of law. Above that age it is a jury question. Deadlines work differently for children too.
Scarring & Injuries
What If the Bite Leaves a Permanent Scar?
Then documenting it properly becomes one of the most important parts of the case, and it is time-sensitive in a way people do not expect.
Scarring is documented through photographs taken over time rather than once, the medical records, any reconstructive consultation, the treatment recommended, where the scar is and how visible, whether it affects function, and psychological impact where clinically identified. Disfigurement is a category California jury instructions name directly, so it is not a marketing frame.
The photographs matter most and are the easiest to lose. Early images of the untreated wound cannot be recreated, and healing changes what a scar looks like. If you have them, keep them. What we will not do is put a number on a scar: there is no scar calculator, and no per-inch value.
Injuries a bite or attack can cause
Depending on the incident and what the records show, injuries can include lacerations and puncture wounds, scarring and disfigurement, soft-tissue, nerve or tendon damage, fractures, infection, lasting effects on function, and psychological effects where a clinician has diagnosed them. None of that is a prediction. Not every bite becomes infected and not every bite scars.
Insurance
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover a Dog Bite?
It may. Homeowners, renters or other liability insurance can respond to a dog bite claim, and often does, but whether a particular policy covers a particular incident depends on the policy.
What it turns on: the policy wording, who is insured, whether the dog is covered or excluded, any breed or prior-incident exclusion, where the bite happened, and the circumstances. Some policies exclude dogs entirely, some exclude a particular dog after an earlier incident, and some owners have no policy. An owner who rents may carry renters insurance that responds, which is a policy question rather than a reason to assume the landlord is responsible.
What if the dog belongs to a friend, a neighbor or a relative?
This is the reason a lot of people never make a call. A claim here is usually made against available liability insurance rather than as a personal demand against someone you know, and identifying which policy responds is generally the first step. We are not going to tell you it carries no personal complexity, because sometimes it does. But the assumption that making a claim means suing a friend for their savings is usually not what happens.
Compensation
What Compensation May Be Available After a Dog Bite?
California separates losses with a financial measure from those without.
Economic
Noneconomic
Not every category applies to every case, and none is established by the fact of a bite alone. Each is built from records, and every future item carries the same standard: reasonably certain, which is a medical evidence question.
How much is a dog bite case worth?
No online calculator can determine the value of an individual case, and California’s jury instruction on noneconomic damages says there is no fixed standard for deciding the amount. It turns on the severity of the injuries, any permanent scarring, treatment still ahead, documented effects, lost income, available insurance and responsible parties, fault issues, and whether the case has to be litigated.
Evidence
Evidence That Can Matter in a Dog Bite Case
Four groups. The first is the one that decays fastest.
The Incident
- Photographs and any video
- Witnesses and their contact details
- Exactly where it happened
- Owner identity and contact information
- What happened immediately before
The Dog and Ownership
- Who owns the dog, and who was handling it
- Any animal bite report made
- Vaccination information where available
- Prior incident information, where obtainable
The Injury
- Photographs of the untreated wound
- Photographs as it heals
- Medical and emergency records
- Plastic and reconstructive consultations
- Treatment recommended going forward
Financial Loss
- Medical bills
- Lost wages
- Costs of future treatment
- Communications from any insurer
Please do not go and get this yourself
Nothing on that list is worth approaching a dog or its owner to obtain. Identifying an owner, locating footage and requesting records are things a lawyer can do without anyone going near an animal that has already bitten. Bite reports and animal control records may be obtainable by public records request, though whether a record exists cannot be promised.
Los Angeles County
Should a Dog Bite Be Reported in Los Angeles?
Yes. Animal bites to people in Los Angeles County are legally reportable, and the county asks anyone with knowledge of one to report it.
Reports go to Los Angeles County Veterinary Public Health, through an online bite reporting portal, by phone on (213) 288-7060 on weekdays, or by email. The public form is published in nine languages. The county singles out one field as the most important: where the biting animal is now, because that is what lets them assess the rabies risk.
One point most pages get backwards. The county covers all of Los Angeles County except Long Beach, Vernon and Pasadena, which run their own health jurisdictions. The City of Los Angeles is inside county jurisdiction, so a bite in the city goes to the county. Animal control is a separate track with a separate agency, and which one depends on the city.
What happens after a report
A biting dog is normally observed for at least ten days, and the county says the vast majority of those quarantines happen at home. Its guidance to owners states directly that the pet will not be taken away and that observation is a safety measure rather than punishment.
Veterinary Public Health also says plainly that a bite report does not mean the animal has been deemed dangerous, and that it is not an animal control agency. Reporting is a public health step, and a civil claim does not depend on whether a report was made.
SourceReporting Animal Bites and Close Encounters with Bats, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Veterinary Public Health (page last updated March 19, 2026)
After a Bite
What Should I Do After a Dog Bite in Los Angeles?
- 01Get appropriate medical care
Before anything else. Wound care, infection and tetanus are clinical questions.
- 02Identify the dog and owner, if you can do it safely
Safely is the operative word. Do not approach the dog.
- 03Photograph the injury
Before treatment if possible, then as it heals.
- 04Note where and how it happened
Location matters legally more than people expect.
- 05Get witness contact details
People disperse quickly and are hard to find later.
- 06Follow the county’s bite reporting guidance
Details in the section above.
- 07Keep medical, wage and insurance records
Including anything an insurer sends you.
- 08Get advice before signing any release
A release is usually final, and early offers often arrive before scarring settles.
Insurers
What If an Insurance Company Contacts Me?
Before giving a recorded statement, signing a broad medical authorization, accepting a settlement or signing a release, be clear on who is asking, whom they represent, what they want and what it may affect.
A broad authorization is not a limited one, and a release is usually final. With a bite the full picture often is not clear early: scarring changes over months, and a settlement signed before it settles cannot be revisited.
Our Process
How Burg & Brock Builds a Dog Bite Case
- 01Identify the dog and its owner
Not always the person holding the leash.
- 02Determine whether the statute applies
Bite or non-bite, and where you were.
- 03Document how the incident happened
Witnesses, footage, the sequence before the bite.
- 04Investigate other responsible parties
Handler, landlord, business, each on its own footing.
- 05Identify available insurance
Every policy that could respond, not only the obvious one.
- 06Document treatment and scarring
Photographs over time, and any reconstructive opinion.
- 07Document economic and longer-term effects
Earnings, future treatment, functional impact.
- 08Negotiate, and litigate when necessary
Built on documents rather than adjectives.
Your Options
How This Compares to Handling It Yourself
Three routes are open to someone hurt after a dog bite. They differ in who does the work, what gets investigated, and when it ends. Nothing below is a prediction.
Handling It Yourself
- You gather records, photographs and witness details
- You deal with the adjuster yourself
- You decide what to ask for, and when
- You track the filing deadline
- No attorney fee
Accepting an Early Offer
- An offer arrives before the claim is worked up
- Payment follows acceptance
- A signed release generally ends the claim
- Treatment may still be running, so the total cost is not yet known
- If the injury worsens later, the claim is usually closed
Bringing in a Lawyer
- The firm gathers and preserves the evidence
- The dog’s history is checked, and the owner’s homeowner policy identified
- Experts are retained where the cause is disputed
- Deadlines are tracked, including any shorter than the general one
- Contingency fee, case costs set out separately
Which route fits depends on facts often unsettled in the first weeks: whether the scar is permanent, and whose policy responds. A release signed before then is still a release.
Deadlines
How Long Do I Have to File?
California personal injury claims generally carry a two-year limitation period.
*That is not a universal deadline, and several circumstances change the analysis entirely.
If a public entity may be responsible, the window is far shorter. A claim involving a government agency or public employee generally requires an administrative claim within six months of the cause of action accruing, and if it is rejected in writing the time to sue runs from when that notice was delivered or mailed rather than from the injury. This is the deadline that catches people bitten by a police or government dog.
Claims involving children
The deadline works differently when the injured person is a child, and it should not be reduced to a formula. One exception people miss: the tolling that applies to minors does not apply against a public entity, so a child there faces the same six-month requirement as an adult. The correct deadline should be evaluated on the specific facts, and early.
The Attorney Responsible for This Page
Cameron Yadidi Brock
- California State Bar#183112 · license active
- AdmittedJune 1996
- PracticePersonal injury, plaintiff representation
- OfficeSherman Oaks, Los Angeles County
Cameron Yadidi Brock has been licensed in California since June 1996 and founded the Law Offices of Burg & Brock in Sherman Oaks. He represents people injured by dogs and in other serious injury matters, including cases involving scarring and disfigurement.
Why Clients Come to Burg & Brock
- 01Personal injury is the practice
Not a department inside a general firm.
- 02Practicing in California since 1996
Verifiable through the State Bar.
- 03Scarring and disfigurement evaluation
Documented over time, not assessed once.
- 04Insurance investigation
Finding the policy that responds, including where it is not obvious.
- 05Contingency representation
No attorney’s fee unless we obtain a recovery. Case costs are separate from attorney’s fees and are set out in the written fee agreement, which controls the actual terms.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Is California a strict liability state for dog bites?
For bites, yes. Civil Code section 3342 makes a dog’s owner liable for a qualifying bite regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it.
Does the dog need to have bitten someone before?
No. There is no free first bite under the statute.
Can a landlord be responsible for a tenant’s dog?
Possibly, but not under the dog bite statute, which names the owner. CACI No. 1013, added July 2025, sets out a negligence claim. The test is whether the landlord knew or must have known of the danger, and there is no duty to inspect.
Does homeowners insurance cover dog bites?
It may, depending on the policy, who is insured, any exclusions and the circumstances. Some owners have no policy at all.
What if the dog belongs to a friend, or the owner rents?
A claim is usually made against available liability insurance rather than pursued personally. Renters or other coverage may respond, which is policy-specific, and it does not automatically shift responsibility to a landlord.
What if I don’t know who owns the dog?
Identifying the owner is part of the investigation. Witnesses, the location, any bite report and available footage are the usual routes.
How long do I have to file a dog bite lawsuit?
Generally two years for a California personal injury claim, but that is not universal. A claim involving a public entity generally requires an administrative claim within six months, and minors are treated differently again.
How much does a dog bite lawyer cost?
Qualifying dog bite matters are handled on a contingency-fee basis, meaning no attorney’s fee unless we obtain a recovery. Case costs are separate and are addressed in the written fee agreement. The first conversation costs nothing.
Free Consultation
Talk to a Los Angeles Dog Bite Lawyer
If you or your child was bitten or injured by a dog, we can investigate ownership, how it happened, what insurance is available, and the treatment, scarring and other losses the injury caused. The consultation is confidential and costs nothing.
Free Case Evaluation
A few details are enough to start. We will follow up with you directly.
Submitting this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. Information you send is not confidential until we agree to represent you.
Law Offices of Burg & Brock, A Professional Law Corporation · Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles County, California
Attorney advertising. Cameron Yadidi Brock is licensed to practice law in California, State Bar #183112. This page is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome; the result in any case depends on its own facts, and results will differ on different facts. Figures on this page are firm-wide across all personal injury matters and are not dog bite results.
Attorney’s fees for qualifying matters are contingent on obtaining a recovery. Case costs are a separate matter from attorney’s fees, and how case costs are handled is set out in the written fee agreement, which controls the actual terms of the representation.
