If a dog bit you or a family member anywhere in New York City, a New York dog bite attorney at Silver Law Group can tell you on a free call whether you have a claim and who pays for it. We represent bite and animal-attack victims across all five boroughs — the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island — and you owe no fee unless we recover money for you. That first consultation is free, available 24 hours a day, and offered in English, Spanish, and Russian.
Do You Have a Dog Bite Case in New York
New York gives you two ways to hold a dog owner responsible, and since April 2025 the second one is much easier to use.
The first is strict liability. If the owner knew or should have known the dog had vicious propensities, the owner answers for the harm the dog causes, no matter how careful the owner was that day. A vicious propensity is not limited to a prior bite. Growling, snarling, snapping, lunging at people, or straining hard against a leash can each put an owner on notice that the dog is dangerous, and any one of them can meet the standard.
For nearly two decades that was the only route, because the Court of Appeals had shut the door on ordinary negligence claims against dog owners in Bard v. Jahnke. On April 17, 2025, the court reopened it. In Flanders v. Goodfellow, New York’s highest court overruled Bard and held that a bite victim can also sue for negligence. That means you can recover when an owner simply failed to use reasonable care — leaving a dog off its leash, failing to restrain it, or not securing a gate or fence — even if the dog had never bitten or menaced anyone before.
The two theories now run side by side. Strict liability turns on what the owner knew about the dog; negligence turns on what the owner did. You do not have to pick one at the start, and a strong claim often pleads both.
A third rule deals with medical bills directly. Under Agriculture and Markets Law §123, once a dog is declared “dangerous” in a court proceeding, its owner is strictly liable for the medical and veterinary costs the attack caused, a separate obligation from any injury lawsuit you bring.
Who Can Be Held Liable for a Dog Bite in New York
The dog’s owner is the first defendant in almost every case. New York law can reach other people too, depending on who knew what and who could have stopped the attack.
- The owner, who is responsible under both the strict-liability and negligence rules above.
- A landlord or property owner, if they knew a tenant kept a dangerous dog on the premises and did nothing about it.
- Anyone who was handling or housing the dog and failed to control or secure it, a category that widened once Flanders revived negligence as a theory.
Most dog bite claims are not paid from the owner’s own pocket. They run through the homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy covering the property where the dog lives, so a claim against a neighbor or acquaintance rarely reaches their personal savings.
Injuries and Compensation in a New York Dog Bite Case
A dog bite is rarely a clean wound. The force of a dog’s jaws crushes and tears tissue, and the bacteria in its mouth drive a high infection risk even after the skin closes. The injuries we see most often include:
- Deep lacerations and puncture wounds
- Wound infections, including from bacteria common in dog saliva
- Nerve and muscle damage that limits movement
- Permanent scarring and disfigurement, often on the face, hands, or arms
- Emotional trauma, including anxiety around dogs and post-traumatic stress disorder
What you can recover depends on which legal theory fits your case. Once you establish strict liability or negligence, damages can include your medical costs, your lost wages, your pain and suffering, and the cost of future care such as reconstructive surgery or counseling. Medical costs stand on their own footing under the dangerous-dog rule: if the dog is adjudicated dangerous, its owner owes those costs even without proof of vicious propensity. The full range of damages, though, opens up only once liability is proven.
What to Do After a Dog Bite in New York
The first day after a bite shapes both your health and your claim. Work through these steps as soon as you can:
- Get medical care first. A wound that looks minor can carry infection or nerve damage, and the treatment record ties your injury to the attack.
- Identify the owner and get their contact details and the dog’s rabies-vaccination records; those records determine whether you need rabies shots.
- Photograph your injuries, the dog, and where the attack happened, before anything changes.
- Collect witness names and numbers. A neighbor who saw the dog lunge can matter later, especially under the negligence standard.
- Report the bite. New York City requires it within 24 hours, and the report protects your health as much as your claim.
That last step is a legal requirement, not a suggestion. NYC Health Code §11.03 requires every animal bite in the city to be reported within 24 hours, by phone to 311 or directly to the NYC DOHMH Animal Bite Unit. The report lets the Health Department confirm the dog is healthy over the following days and spare you unnecessary rabies treatment.
Those reports also build the city’s DOHMH dog bite data, the public record of how often this happens. Between 2015 and 2023 New Yorkers reported about 3,300 dog bites a year across the five boroughs, and because many bites are never reported, the true count runs higher.
What It Costs to Hire a New York Dog Bite Lawyer
Nothing. You pay no money up front to hire us for a dog bite claim.
We work on a contingency fee, which means our fee is a percentage of the money we recover for you, taken out only at the end if we win or settle your case. If we recover nothing, you owe us no attorney’s fee. That structure lets you bring a claim against a dog owner’s insurance company without pulling from savings you may need for medical bills, and it keeps our interest tied to yours: we are paid when you are paid.
The first consultation costs nothing either. You can call, describe what happened, and find out whether you have a case before you commit to anything.
How Long You Have to File a Dog Bite Claim in New York
A dog bite claim runs on a deadline called the statute of limitations, and missing it usually ends the case no matter how strong it was.
- Three years to sue. Under CPLR §214, you generally have three years from the date of the bite to file a personal injury lawsuit.
- Two years for a wrongful death claim. If a dog attack was fatal, EPTL §5-4.1 gives the family two years from the date of death to bring a wrongful death case.
- 90 days if a government entity is involved. When the responsible party is a city agency or a public-housing authority — for example, a dog kept in NYCHA housing or one owned by a government employee — General Municipal Law §50-e requires a formal Notice of Claim within 90 days before you can sue.
The 90-day window is the one that catches people off guard. It is far shorter than the three-year rule, it applies before you ever file suit, and blowing it can bar an otherwise valid claim. If a public agency might be responsible, talk to a lawyer within days, not months.
Boroughs We Serve Across New York City
We handle dog bite claims in every part of New York City. Pick your borough for details on local courts, hospitals, and how a claim moves where you live:
The law itself does not change from one borough to the next. Strict liability, the Flanders negligence rule, and the three-year deadline apply the same way in Staten Island as in the Bronx. What changes is the ground game: which courthouse hears your case, which hospital treated you, and how fast a local calendar moves. If your question is about a specific borough, that borough’s page goes deeper on those details.
Why Choose Silver Law Group for Your New York Dog Bite Case
Picking a lawyer after a dog attack comes down to access and fit. Here is what you get with our firm:
- A free consultation, with no obligation to hire us after it.
- No fee unless we recover for you, so cost is never the reason you wait to call.
- Service in English, Spanish, and Russian, so you can explain what happened in your own language.
- A lawyer reachable 24 hours a day, because dog bites do not wait for business hours.
- Trial-ready preparation on every case, which gives an insurer a reason to settle fairly instead of stalling.
- A lawyer who can come to you, at home or in the hospital, if your injuries make travel hard.
Our office sits in Midtown Manhattan at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor, and it serves the whole city, not one corner of it. From there we take dog bite cases in all five boroughs. If a dog attacked you or someone in your family, call 212-470-4544 for a free consultation and we will tell you where you stand.