Dog bites can be traumatic on multiple levels. They can leave you with severe wounds that require expensive medical attention. Victims may also experience serious long-term consequences like scars or a great amount of emotional distress.

Unfortunately, if you are bitten by a stray dog, you don’t have many legal options in Arizona if the owner can’t be located.

If you made a formal complaint to animal control about the stray dog prior to being bitten and you can prove animal control services failed to respond appropriately, then you might have legal recourse against the city. Other than that, your best option to recover losses after a stray dog bite is to find the owner.

In Arizona, dog owners are subject to strict liability laws. It is their legal obligation to keep their pets from attacking or biting people. If you were harmed in a dog attack, we recommend consulting with an experienced Phoenix personal injury law firm.

Arizona Liability Laws for Dog Bites

There are two types of dog attack and dog bite claims that can be filed against an owner in Arizona. One is under “strict liability” and the other requires you to prove negligence on the part of the owner. Strict liability is a standard of liability that does not depend on actual negligence or the intent to harm. In Arizona, you have one year from the date of the attack to file a claim against the owner of the dog.

Strick Liability Laws

The “Dog at Large” law (Arizona Revised Statute §11-1020) is a strict liability law. It requires owners to keep their dogs leashed when not on their property. If the dog escaped the yard and you were harmed, the owner is responsible for their dog’s actions. The dog does not have to make physical contact with you to still be subject to this law. If you fell or incidentally harmed yourself while attempting to escape the dog, the owner is still liable for your injuries.

If the dog bit you it does not matter if the dog was leashed or on the owner’s property. The owner is fully responsible for your injuries unless you provoked the attack.

General Negligence Laws

Some states have what’s known as the “one free bite rule”. If the owner was walking their dog and you were harmed by the dog, you might be required to prove that the owner knew their dog had a predisposition for violence and failed to take adequate steps to prevent attacks. If the dog has never attacked someone before, it can be difficult to prove that the owner should have taken greater care in preventing it from harming someone.

Arizona does not have a one bite rule, so dog owners can be held liable even on the first attack.

When the Owner May No Longer Be Liable

If you were trespassing on the owner’s property or provoked the dog prior to being harmed, the owner may no longer be liable for your injuries.

Provocation here means that a reasonable person would view your actions as provoking the dog to attack you or purposefully agitating the animal. There are several actions that can be counted as provocation. If the dog is chained and you enter its field of range, that can count as provocation.

Reaching for one of its toys or food might also be considered provocation.

In some states, provocation also applies to breaking up a dog fight and being harmed as a result. In Arizona, if you were breaking up a dog fight and were bitten that does not necessarily count as provocation because the dog was already in a provoked state regardless of your actions.

Contact a Phoenix Lawyer with a Proven Track Records of Success in Dog Bite Cases

The lawyers we list on PHX Elite Lawyers are highly rated and award-winning members of the legal community. We believe that a good lawyer exercises compassion and empathy for their clients while guiding their client to the best possible outcome for them.

If you were recently attacked by a dog or need a personal injury lawyer for other reasons, contact one of our listed lawyers online.