Dog Bite Law

Require dog safety education in schools 

More than half of the victims of serious dog bites are kids! Kids have to learn about dog safety. Parents have to teach it to them. And it needs to be taught in school.

The American Humane Society says that children must learn the following basics about dog safety:

• Never approach an unknown dog or a dog that is alone without its owner, and always ask the owner’s permission before petting it.
• Never approach an injured animal – go find an adult who can get it the help it needs.
• Never approach a dog that is eating, sleeping, nursing or has something it likes – like a bone or toy.
• Don’t poke, hit, pull, pinch or tease a dog – the dog may not realize you’re just playing.
• Don't chase or run from a dog.

The consequences of not teaching our kids can be severe. In 2006, a 2-1/2 year old boy who was in day care reached out to pet something that looked like a dog, and ended up being mauled and having his skull fractured by what was actually a dingo (read the article). This was a freak accident, of course -- dingos in the USA are rare -- but it might have been prevented if the child had been taught to avoid unknown animals unless given specific permission to approach or touch them.

Veterinarians and pediatricians should address strategies for bite prevention, including the need for appropriate supervision of children. Other strategies include dissemination of information on preventing bites, school-based educational programs on bite prevention and canine behavior, and educational programs regarding responsible dog selection, ownership, and training. For example, the American Humane Society sells "American Humane KIDS: Kids Interacting with Dogs Safely™ Curriculum Set with Coloring Books." It provides fun lessons for 4- to 7-year-olds that not only teach safety around dogs, but also incorporate character education. This is a subject that needs to be taught in schools.

Force dog owners to have insurance that would compensate dog bite victims 

Dogs need to be licensed, microchipped and insured. The insurance industry can help dog owners avoid financial ruin, dog bite victims pay medical bills and recover other losses, and communities weed out dangerous dogs. To accomplish this, all dogs (or at least the ones over 30 pounds) should be insured. Laws must be passed requiring that some or all dogs be licensed, microchipped and insured.

Already, many pet owners have a microchip embedded under the dog's skin, to enable people to identify the dog if it is lost or it bites someone. Similarly, people with homeowners insurance or renters insurance already meet the requirement that is proposed here (unless their policy is defective by excluding accidents caused by animals).

As a condition of licensing, a dog owner should have to prove he or she has insurance to cover injuries caused by that dog. Without homeowner insurance, renter insurance, or dog liability insurance, a person should not be allowed to own a dog. Insurance is available and is not prohibitively expensive. (See Insurance for the dog owner: where to get dog owner liability insurance.)

If these laws are passed, the insurance industry will locate and weed out the dangerous dogs, simply by refusing to insure them. This will take pressure off the animal control departments and will shift the cost of dangerous dogs to the owners of those dogs.

Make pet stores give customers specific information about breeds

Through proper selection, socialization, training, care, and treatment of a dog, dog owners can reduce the likelihood of owning a dog that will eventually bite (see Avoid trouble with your dog). The law must see to it that owner education is accomplished at the point where it will do the most good: the selection of the dog. When a family is picking a dog at the pet store, the store should be required to provide information about the breed. This rule should also apply to breeders, adoption organizations, rescues and shelters.

We need to help dog owners to be more responsible. This means they need to learn the characteristics, health issues, and other requirements of their new dog. They need to know a range of basics:

• Pick a dog that is right for your household.

• Train the dog, hopefully with a professional trainer or at least some classes given by the city.

• Learn the behavioral characteristics of the dog you are thinking of getting. Some dogs are too big and too powerful for small apartments or small children. Other dogs will bond only with one member of the family and will be a threat to the other members.

There is nothing new to this concept. Instructions and warnings are part of everyday, modern life. Electrical cords warn of shock, plastic bags of suffocation; trucks beep when they back up. Just about everything comes with advice, instructions and warnings. Many activities have their own safety attire (like batting helmets) or special rules (like adult supervision of playgrounds).

Here are the top causes of childhood emergency-room injuries:
 

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association. See also When, where and why kids get bit.)

You'd think the second highest thing that injures children would come with warnings too! But you can go to a pet store, buy a dog like an Akita or Chow-chow, and not have to demonstrate any knowledge about it. You don't have to consider whether it is correct for your household (should Presa Canarios be confined in a small apartment, or will doing so make them crazy?). You don't leave the pet store knowing any more than when you walked in.

Why not require that at least pet stores distribute information and warnings about dogs?

• A checklist to determine what the important characteristics of the buyer's household are.
• A description of the particular breed's temperament, and whether dogs of that breed bond with more than one family member.
• A warning that certain breeds will make it difficult or impossible to obtain insurance, that infants should not be in the same households with large and powerful dogs, that children should never be left alone with dogs or other animals, etc.

There is solid legal precedent for this. The courts have mandated warnings about:

• Violent kids (Ellis v. D'Angelo (1953) 116 Cal.App.2d 310, upheld a cause of action against parents who failed to warn a baby-sitter of the violent proclivities of their child.
• Violent foster children (Johnson v. State of California (1968) 69 Cal.2d 782 upheld a suit against the state for  failure to warn foster parents of the dangerous tendencies of their ward.)
• The release of dangerous prisoners (Morgan v. County of Yuba (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 938 sustained a cause of action against a sheriff who had promised to warn decedent before releasing a dangerous prisoner, but failed to do so.

Enact laws that will take dangerous dogs off the streets 

Every city, county and state should have dog laws that provide sufficient protection to the community. While education is essential for civilized communities, education itself never stops the unthinking, the indifferent or the malicious person from harming his neighbors. Two laws are required:

• A "dangerous dog law." This is a statute or ordinance that identifies unacceptable behavior on the part of a dog and its owners (meaning owners, harborers, keepers and custodians), establishes remedies of various sorts, and authorizes third parties to take action to control the dog and its owner. Attorney Kenneth Phillips has published his Model Dangerous Dog Law at www.dogbitelaw.com.

• An "irresponsible dog owner law." In addition to identifying and confining dangerous dogs, we must keep ourselves safe from the real source of dog attacks: chronically irresponsible dog owners. Attorney Phillips has also drafted the Model Irresponsible Dog Owner Law. It identifies and penalizes dog owners whose actions make our communities unsafe.

These laws may exist on the city, county and state level. They may contemplate court actions or local "dog court" hearings. After the laws are passed, they must be enforced.

Criminalize the failure to stop a dog attack 

No state makes it a crime for a dog owner/keeper/caretaker to simply watch as his or her dog attacks a person or animal. Yet there are laws requiring a person to render aid under certain circumstances (for example, California drivers must render aid to any person whom they might injure in a motor vehicle collision). In dog attacks, frequently the owner is present and capable of controlling the dog, but takes no action to stop the attack. This can be an attack on another animal, such as a dog fight in a dog park, or an attack on a person. The results can be horrifying:

• A dog owner brought his dog into a playground, gave permission for a 6-year-old boy to pet it, watched as the dog mauled the boy's face, and then calmly walked away as the boy was bleeding and screaming.

• A dog owner took her dog for a walk in her own neighborhood. Down the street, a man let his dog out, onto the sidewalk. The two dogs began to fight. The woman tried to stop the fight; the man did not. The woman was severely bitten or cut as she tried to pry the dogs loose.

• In the Diane Whipple murder case, the attack happened in the hallway of an apartment building, the dogs' owner/caretaker (Marjorie Knoller) was present during the attack, the attack lasted 10 minutes, but somehow Knoller did not stop it from resulting in Whipple's horrible death. 

It should be a crime for an owner or keeper to fail to take reasonable action to stop a dog attack after it begins. Reasonable action should include the obligation to use all necessary force to stop the dog from continuing to hurt a human being. 

In 2008, the Texas Supreme Court held that a dog owner owes a duty to attempt to stop the dog from attacking a person after the attack has begun. This is a civil duty, meaning that the victim can sue if the dog owner fails to attempt to stop the attack. The court based its holding on Restatement 2nd of Torts, sec. 518, comment j (1977). For that reason, the opinion should be persuasive in courts throughout the USA. (Bushnell v. Mott (Tex. 03/28/2008) 2008.TX.0002515, http://www.versuslaw.com.)

Get rid of the one-bite law

When a dog injures a person, whether by biting him, knocking him down or hurting him in another way, the burden of the loss should be on the shoulders of the owner of the dog, not the victim. Two-thirds of American states and the District of Columbia follow this rule. (See Legal rights of a dog bite victim.)

However, the remainder do not. These states have retained the ancient English rule which says that the burden of the first injury falls on the victim. This is called the "one-bite rule" or the "first bite free rule." (See The one-bite rule.) In a "one-bite state," a child who, for example, becomes disfigured by a neighbor's dog is not compensated.

Exactly who is benefiting from the one-bite rule? Insurance companies! Dog bite victims receive compensation from homeowner insurance and renter insurance policies. The dog owners do not have to pay a deductible. When the one-bite rule puts the burden of a dog bite on the victim, the insurance company of the dog owner is the beneficiary. In fact, this hurts not only the victim, but even the dog owner in 75% of dog bite incidents, because the victim is a member of the dog owner's family, a friend or a neighbor 75% of the time. The one-bite rule thus gets the insurance company out of paying compensation even if the dog owner feels responsible toward the family member, friend or neighbor.

The one-bite rule is outdated and unfair, and state legislatures must discard it and replace it with strict liability for canine-inflicted injuries.  

Enact leash laws and dog-trespass laws

The absence of leash laws and dog-trespass laws makes a community unsafe for people and other dogs. There are about 70 million dogs in the USA and many of them are killed or injured in fights every day. The fights usually include one or more unleashed dogs. The consequences often include high veterinary bills and long-lasting grief.

People are frequently among the victims of dog fights. Many of the dog mauling victims represented by Kenneth Phillips were bitten while trying to keep their dogs out of a fight. An eye surgeon bitten on the hand and unable to perform eye surgery, a young woman bitten on her arms and breasts, and an older lady whose finger was partially ripped off were all injured while trying to prevent a fight between their dogs and unleashed, vicious dogs.

A recent report established that 30% of dog bite fatalities resulted from groups of owned dogs that were freely roaming off the owner's property. Some of these deaths might have been prevented through more stringent animal control laws and enforcement. For example, on November 30, 2003, three roaming pit bulls killed Jennifer Brooke, 40, in a rural part of Colorado. The three dogs had terrorized other neighbors, but when charges were brought against the owner, the case was dismissed because the county did not have laws governing dog attacks, according to county court records. 

Urban and suburban areas need leash laws containing the following provisions:

• Every dog shall be leashed at all times except only when it is inside the residence of its owner, or upon the property of its owner and enclosed by a fence. 
• A dog shall not be considered enclosed by a fence when and if the dog can pass through, under or over the fence, or the gate of the fence is not securely latched. 
• A dog that can snap or bite a person through a fence shall not be considered enclosed by the fence.
• An electronic fence shall not be considered to be a fence, and an electronic leash shall not be considered to be a leash.
• A dog will be considered to be leashed only when the leash is six feet or less in length or is a retractable leash, and is being grasped by an adult, provided that if the dog is less than 20 pounds then the leash may be grasped by a person who is competent to handle the dog and is over 12 years of age. 
• Notwithstanding the prior section, in the event that a dog on a retractable leash causes injury or death to a person or animal, the owners and the person holding the retractable leash shall be presumed to be in violation of this law unless it is proved that the leash was retracted to no more than six feet at the time of the injury or damage.

Communities also should enact laws that prevent trespassing by dogs. Whether or not on a leash, no dog shall be permitted upon property of anyone other than the dog's owner, except with permission, which can be express or implied. Attorney Kenneth Phillips' Model Dog Bite Laws contain leash requirements and provisions against dog-trespassing.

Enforce the laws that prohibit dog fighting

Dog fighting is an activity in which two dogs are made to fight each other for the purpose of gambling and amusement. The dogs are bred, conditioned and trained for that purpose. The fight lasts for up to two hours, ending when one or both dogs are so badly injured that they cannot continue. Dog fights usually are planned and organized, more often than not. The aftermath of a dog fight often includes the death of one or both of the severely injured dogs.

Dog fighting has been condemned as immoral, its organizers are subject to felony convictions in all but two states, and even its spectators are exposed to criminal liability in 48 states. There are numerous reprehensible facets of this practice, including the presence of gambling, firearms, illegal drugs, and young children. Exposing children to this activity makes them insensitive to animal cruelty, and ultimately leads to violence against other people. (See Humane Society of the United States, First Strike: The Connection Between Animal Cruelty and Human Violence.)

Dog fighting is the reason why pit bulls and other breeds of dog are so dangerous and vicious toward other animals. The presence of dogs bred for violence poses a substantial threat to the community. One reason is that, to a dog that is looking to fight another dog, a small child appears like a worthy opponent, and thus becomes a defenseless victim. Another reason is that the violence of an attack is often redirected to a nearby human, causing severe injuries.

The criminal penalties against dog fighting should be the same in all states, but two states -- Idaho and Wyoming -- still let the practice "slide" as a misdemeanor. Being present at a dog fight should be a felony is all states, but many states refuse to treat it as such. Possession of a dog that is trained and conditioned to fight should be illegal in all states, but a number permit it without any kind of penalty. The Humane Society of the United States maintains a chart that lists all of the state laws.

Everyone in a state that treats the possession of a fighting dog, or the organizing, participating in, or attendance at a dog fight, as less than a felony should contact their state representatives and demand that the law be changed. Everyone who learns information about dog fighting in their own community should report the same to the police.

Keep certain high-risk breeds away from the wrong people, places and situations

There are four points of view about whether the efforts to deal with the dog bite epidemic should focus on breeds of dogs (for example, should there be breed specific laws that restrict or ban pit bulls). These points of view include: nothing needs to be done about breeds, communities should concentrate on educating the usual victims of attacks but should not pass breed specific laws of any kind, dangerous breeds should be restricted, and dangerous breeds should be banned.

The most rational and politically "do-able" approach would be to pass laws that would keep certain high-risk breeds away from the wrong people, places and situations. A comprehensive statute or group of laws would eliminate the "one bite rule" across the board, require insurance as a condition for ownership of certain types of dogs, toughen the dog control laws, criminalize the failure to stop a dog attack in progress, and keep dogs of certain breeds, size or weight away from the wrong people, places and situations. For details, see Breed Specific Laws, Regulations and Bans, which is another section of Dog Bite Law.

As a corollary of this point, communities should ban animals that are not domestic dogs at all. These include the wolf-hybrid and the dingo, both of which can be very dangerous when not properly socialized, trained and maintained. In 2006, a dingo that came to work with a construction worker brutally mauled and broke the skull of a 2-1/2 year old boy who was next door in a day care center (read article).

Support further research about dog attacks

The causes of dog attacks, the dogs that engage in attacks, the factors involved in attacks, the characteristics of the owners of the dog that initiate attacks, and many other important facts about dog attacks need to be further studied. The research has to take place on the national, state and local levels.

More information about prevention

One of the best -- meaning most authoritative and comprehensive -- articles about dog bite prevention strategies is A Community Approach to Dog Bite Prevention JAVMA 2001; 218: 1732-1749.  This 2001 report, intended for communities interested in developing a comprehensive bite prevention program, includes references to some of the most important studies. It also provides well-reasoned opinions about why dogs bite people. 

The article contains model legislation for the control of dangerous dogs. In the opinion of Kenneth Phillips, the author of Dog Bite Law, the model legislation is too weak. The Los Angeles County Code has stronger laws and reflects the experience of a large county with diverse attitudes toward dogs. It is recommended that both the model legislation in the article and the Los Angeles County Code be considered for enactment in other communities. To see the Los Angeles County Code provisions regarding animals, click here and then select "Title 10: Animals."

www.dogbitelaw.com and each of its sections and products, including Dog Bite Law, The Dog Bite Law Adviser, Dog Bite Litigation Forms, What To Do If Your Dog Is Injured Or Killed, Avoiding Liability When You Train, Shelter or Adopt-Out, Anatomy of a Dog Bite Case, and the foregoing text, are (c) 1999-2009 Kenneth M. Phillips. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part prohibited except where advance permission is granted in writing. Please read the disclaimer and our rules for linking and quoting. Reporters seeking interviews are welcome to contact us by clicking here.