New York Dog Bite Law: Liability, Damages, and Landlord Risk

New York dog bite law changed sharply in April 2025, and it now gives an injured person two legal paths that run in parallel. Medical and veterinary costs are recoverable under a strict liability provision that does not require proof of carelessness. Everything else — pain and suffering, lost wages, emotional distress, scarring — is recoverable through either an ordinary negligence claim against the owner or a vicious propensity claim if the owner knew the dog was dangerous. Which path fits your facts determines what evidence you need to gather.

Strict Liability for Medical Costs

Agriculture and Markets Law Section 123 makes the owner or lawful custodian of a dog found to be “dangerous” strictly liable for medical and veterinary costs the dog caused. A dog qualifies as dangerous if it attacks a person, companion animal, or farm animal without justification, or behaves in a way that presents a serious threat of injury or death. Once the dangerous designation attaches, the victim does not need to show carelessness. The owner pays the medical costs regardless of the precautions taken.¹

The reach of Section 123 stops there. It does not cover pain and suffering, lost wages, emotional distress, or property damage. For those categories, a separate theory of liability is required.

Negligence Claims After Flanders v. Goodfellow

For nearly two decades, the controlling precedent was Bard v. Jahnke, a 2006 Court of Appeals decision that barred common-law negligence claims when a domestic animal caused harm. Under Bard, showing that an owner was careless was not enough. A victim had to prove the animal had a known vicious propensity, and without that proof, recovery stopped at medical bills.

In Flanders v. Goodfellow, decided April 17, 2025, the Court of Appeals overruled Bard, calling the old rule “in tension with ordinary tort principles, unworkable, and, in some circumstances, unfair.” Ordinary negligence is now a viable theory of liability for injuries caused by domestic animals in New York.²

Under the current framework, a bite victim can pursue negligence, vicious propensity, or both in the same lawsuit. The negligence path matters because it no longer requires proving the dog had a history of aggression. If an owner let a large dog off-leash in a crowded park and the dog bit someone on that first outing, ordinary negligence principles can now support the claim. The question becomes whether the owner exercised reasonable care under the circumstances.²

Vicious Propensity Claims

The vicious propensity doctrine survived Flanders and remains a separate route, often a stronger one. An owner with actual or constructive knowledge of a dog’s vicious propensities faces strict liability for all damages flowing from those propensities, not just medical costs. That includes pain and suffering, emotional distress, scarring, and lost income.²

The advantage of the vicious propensity path is that the owner’s precautions do not matter. If the owner knew, the owner is liable. The tradeoff is the evidence you need: proof that the owner had actual or constructive knowledge of the dog’s aggressive tendencies before the incident that injured you.

Proving the Owner Knew

A dog does not need a prior bite for a court to find vicious propensities. Courts look at the pattern of behavior around the animal. In Flanders, the evidence included the dog yanking people around on a leash, once dragging its handler to the ground, and slamming its head into glass in apparent attempts to attack a person on the other side.³

Useful categories of evidence include:

Prior aggressive behavior such as growling, snapping, lunging at passersby, or charging at other animals, even where no contact occurred.
Previous bite incidents, even minor ones.
Records of complaints made to animal control or police about the dog.
High fencing and “Beware of Dog” signs, which suggest the owner recognized the risk.
A prior dangerous dog proceeding under Agriculture and Markets Law, which is powerful proof of knowledge.

Bite records can be requested under the Freedom of Information Law. In New York City, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene maintains a dedicated FOIL form for dog bite records.⁴

What You Can Recover

Recovery scales with the theory of liability. Under Section 123 alone, you get medical costs. Under negligence or vicious propensity, the full range of personal injury damages is available:

Medical expenses, including emergency care, surgery, physical therapy, rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, scar revision, and anticipated future treatment. Dog bite hospital stays run high; federal data shows the average inpatient stay for a dog bite costs significantly more per day than other injury-related hospitalizations.⁵
Pain and suffering, covering physical pain during recovery and any permanent scarring or disfigurement.
Emotional distress, including post-traumatic stress and anxiety around dogs, typically supported by a mental health professional’s evaluation.
Lost income during recovery and any reduction in future earning capacity where the injury causes lasting limitations.
Property damage — clothing, eyeglasses, phones, and other items damaged in the attack.

Each category needs documentation: medical bills, pay stubs showing missed work, repair receipts, and psychological evaluations. Insurance industry data shows the average dog bite liability claim reached roughly $69,000 in 2024, reflecting both the severity of injuries and the range of damages victims pursue.

Defenses the Owner May Raise

Two defenses come up regularly. The first is provocation. If the owner can show that the injured person teased, hit, or aggressively approached the dog in a way that would cause a reasonable animal to react defensively, liability may not attach. Courts look at whether the victim’s behavior was the proximate cause of the bite.

The second is trespass. When a person is bitten while unlawfully on the owner’s property, the owner’s exposure narrows. The defense has limits, though: owners may still have a duty to warn known trespassers of a dog’s presence. That is one reason posted warnings cut both ways in litigation — they help a vicious propensity claim because they show the owner knew the risk, and they help a trespass defense against someone who entered anyway.

When a Landlord Can Be on the Hook

A landlord is not automatically liable for a tenant’s dog, but liability is possible when two conditions line up: the landlord knew about the dog’s dangerous tendencies, and the landlord had enough control over the property to do something about it. The controlling case is Strunk v. Zoltanski, which held that a landlord out of possession can be liable where they had knowledge of the dog’s vicious propensities and retained sufficient control to remove or confine the animal.

Practically, a landlord who receives complaints about an aggressive dog, has a lease that prohibits dangerous animals, and does nothing to enforce it is exposed. Communications between landlord and tenant about the dog, complaints from other tenants, documentation of broken fencing or gates in common areas, and unenforced lease provisions all build the case. After Flanders, a straightforward negligence claim may also lie against a landlord whose failure to maintain safe common areas contributed to the incident.

Insurance, Breed Exclusions, and Collecting

Most dog bite claims are paid through the owner’s homeowners or renters insurance, which usually includes liability coverage. Standard renters policies commonly carry liability limits between $100,000 and $300,000. Anything above the policy limit falls on the owner personally.

Breed exclusions complicate collection. Many insurers keep lists of breeds they classify as high-risk, and policies covering those breeds may be denied or carry specific exclusions. Breeds commonly flagged include pit bulls, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, German shepherds, chow chows, and Akitas. When a claim is denied on that basis, the owner is personally liable for the victim’s medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Coverage can also be denied where the dog has a documented history of prior aggression, where the incident happened while the owner was violating local leash laws, or where the dog was in a location prohibited by the owner’s rental agreement. If the owner has no assets and no coverage, even a strong case can produce a judgment that is difficult to collect.

Deadline to File and Reporting the Bite

New York gives dog bite victims three years from the date of the injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. The deadline applies to both negligence and vicious propensity claims.⁶

Three years sounds generous, but evidence deteriorates quickly. Witnesses move, memories fade, and animal control records can be harder to locate as time passes. Waiting also makes it harder to connect the dog’s behavior to the owner’s knowledge before the incident.

In New York City, dog bites should be reported to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene online or by calling 311.⁷ Outside the five boroughs, the state Department of Health directs victims to their local health department for rabies exposure evaluation.⁸ After a bite is reported, authorities typically require a 10-day confinement and observation period for the dog to monitor for rabies; a dog that stays healthy for 10 days after biting was not shedding the virus at the time.⁹ The report also creates a paper trail that becomes valuable evidence if the same dog injures someone else.

1
New York State Senate. New York Agriculture and Markets Law AGM 123 – Dangerous Dogs
2
Justia. Flanders v Goodfellow – 2025 New York Court of Appeals Decisions
3
New York State Court of Appeals. Rebecca M. Flanders v Stephen F. Goodfellow et al.
4
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) Requests
5
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Stays Involving Dog Bites
6
New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 214 – Actions to Be Commenced Within Three Years
7
NYC Health. Dog Bites
8
New York State Department of Health. Dog Bite Prevention
9
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Information for Veterinarians