Arkansas Dog Bite Laws Explained (One-Bite Rule)
One-Bite Rule
Arkansas has no dog bite statute, so the case turns on what the owner knew — and recovery stops entirely if you are found half at fault.
How Arkansas Dog Bite Law Works
Arkansas is one of the states where a dog bite claim starts from behind. There is no statute making an owner automatically liable, no equivalent of Illinois's Animal Control Act or Florida's § 767.04. What Arkansas has is common law, and the doctrine that controls most claims is scienter: an owner is liable where they knew, or had reason to know, that the dog was dangerous. The burden of proving that sits on the person who was bitten.
Scienter gets called the one-bite rule, which is a poor name for it. The rule does not entitle every dog to one uncontested bite. An Arkansas owner whose dog had never actually bitten anyone can still be liable where the dog had been lunging at passers-by, snapping at children, kept chained because of its temperament, or generating complaints the owner heard about. What the rule really requires is notice, and a bite is only one of several ways notice gets established.
The parallel route is ordinary negligence, and in practice it is often the stronger one. A negligence claim does not ask anything about the dog's history. It asks whether the owner behaved reasonably — a gate that latched, a leash where the local ordinance required one, confinement adequate for the animal. Arkansas has no statewide leash law, so this turns entirely on the municipal code that applied where the attack happened. Little Rock, North Little Rock, Fayetteville and most other cities have restraint rules; large stretches of unincorporated county have none.
That distinction is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a footnote. Where an ordinance was in force and was violated, an Arkansas claim moves from a difficult evidentiary exercise about what the owner knew to a comparatively straightforward one about whether a written rule was followed. Where no ordinance applied, the negligence claim survives but has to be built on ordinary reasonableness instead.
Arkansas's fault rule then imposes a hard ceiling on how much argument a claimant can afford to lose. Under Ark. Code § 16-64-122, damages are reduced in proportion to the claimant's fault where that fault is of a lesser degree than the defendant's — but where the claimant's fault equals or exceeds the defendant's, recovery is barred outright. The cut-off is 50 percent, not 51. That is stricter than Florida's or Illinois's threshold, and it means a provocation or trespass defense in Arkansas is aiming at a line rather than negotiating a discount.
Arkansas has also abolished joint and several liability, so each defendant is severally liable only for its own allocated share. Where a dog owner has no insurance and a landlord does, the landlord's carrier is not on the hook for the owner's percentage. Naming every responsible party early is therefore worth real money, because a share allocated to someone who was never brought into the case is a share nobody pays.
One point runs the other way. Arkansas's statutory cap on punitive damages, Ark. Code § 16-55-208, was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518, as an unconstitutional legislative intrusion on the court's rule-making power. Punitive awards in Arkansas are therefore uncapped by statute. That is seldom relevant to a dog bite claim, but it is not never — an owner who ignored repeated warnings about a dog known to be dangerous is precisely the fact pattern where it becomes live.
What an Arkansas attorney is mostly being paid to do is assemble the knowledge record early and keep the fault percentage below half. Both are investigation problems rather than argument problems, and both get harder with time. Fees follow the standard contingency structure — nothing upfront, commonly around a third of any recovery, paid only from what is recovered, typically nothing owed if there is no recovery.
On timing, Arkansas is generous on paper and dangerous in practice. Ark. Code § 16-56-105 allows three years from the injury, three times what Arizona and Tennessee allow on their statutory claims. But a scienter case is built out of animal control records, neighbour recollections and things an owner said in the first hour, and none of that reliably survives three years. Arkansas claims fail for lack of evidence far more often than for lack of time.
Not every bite here needs a lawyer. Minor wound, prompt care, no lasting mark, an insurer paying without a fight — that is a claim most people can handle. What changes it: any dispute about what the owner knew, any argument that you provoked the dog or were somewhere you should not have been, surgery or permanent scarring, a child victim, an uninsured owner, or an attack serious enough that Ark. Code § 5-62-125 charges are in play, since a criminal file built on the owner's knowledge is exactly the evidence a civil scienter claim needs.
The evidence to preserve is consistent either way. Photographs of the wound the same day and through healing, and of the location, the fence, the gate and any posted sign — signage matters unusually much in Arkansas because it is simultaneously evidence the owner knew and evidence you were warned. A written note of anything the owner said in the first minutes, and who else heard it. Witness names and numbers, especially neighbours who had seen the dog before. The animal control report — bites that break the skin must be reported in Little Rock, and the animal is quarantined ten days regardless of vaccination status, with the Little Rock Animal Village reachable on (501) 376-3067. The owner's name, address and insurance details. And the full medical record.
For low-value claims, Arkansas district court small claims handles disputes up to $5,000 without lawyers. Anything involving surgery, permanent scarring, a contested knowledge question or a serious comparative fault argument belongs in circuit court, because the 50 percent bar makes a losing fault argument in Arkansas considerably more expensive than in most states.
| Liability rule | No dog bite statute. Common-law scienter and negligence, with a 50 percent comparative fault bar and several-only liability. |
|---|---|
| Governing statute | Unlawful dog attack — Arkansas’s only dog-specific liability provision is criminalNo civil statute; Ark. Code § 5-62-125 (criminal) |
| Deadline to file | 3 years from the date of the injuryArk. Code § 16-56-105 |
| If the victim is a child | Unusually wide. Ark. Code § 16-56-116(a) lets a person who was under 21 at accrual sue within three years after attaining full age. The reference to 21 predates Arkansas lowering its age of majority to 18 and is generally applied as three years from the eighteenth birthday — worth confirming against your own dates rather than assumed. Coexisting disabilities must all be removed before the clock starts. |
| Shared fault | Modified comparative fault — barred at 50 percent, not 51Ark. Code § 16-64-122 |
| Cap on pain & suffering | No cap. Arkansas’s statutory punitive cap, § 16-55-208, was held unconstitutional in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518, as a legislative intrusion on the Supreme Court’s rule-making authority, and no general non-economic cap applies. |
| Does breed matter? | No statewide breed law and no statewide preemption. Restraint and dangerous-dog rules are municipal — Little Rock’s sit in Chapter 6 of the city code and turn on behaviour rather than breed — and unincorporated county areas frequently have none. |
| Dangerous dog law | Municipal only. Little Rock Code of Ordinances ch. 6, art. II; Ark. Code § 5-62-125 for criminal exposure. |
Statute text verified against the official source linked above. General information, not legal advice.
Arkansas Decides Dog Bite Cases Under the Scienter Doctrine
Arkansas has no statute imposing civil liability for a dog bite. A claim runs on common-law scienter — proof that the owner knew or had reason to know the dog was dangerous — or on ordinary negligence. There is no provision that makes an Arkansas owner automatically responsible.
That places Arkansas in a small group of states, alongside Texas, Kansas, Virginia and a handful of others, where the burden sits on the person who was bitten rather than on the person who owned the dog. It is a meaningful difference in outcome, not a technical one: in Illinois or Florida a claimant proves the bite and the owner's identity, while in Arkansas a claimant has to prove something about the owner's state of knowledge before the bite ever happened.
The doctrine is often called the one-bite rule, which oversells the free bite and undersells the notice requirement. An Arkansas owner whose dog had never bitten anyone can still be liable where the dog had shown aggression the owner knew about. Conversely, a prior bite is not a magic key — it is evidence of knowledge, which has to be tied to this owner rather than to a previous one.
Because the scienter route is demanding, most Arkansas claims worth bringing are pleaded on negligence as well. The two theories ask different questions and fail for different reasons, and abandoning one at the pleading stage is a recurring and avoidable mistake.
What Actually Counts as Proof the Owner Knew
Knowledge can be shown by a prior bite, but also by prior lunging or snapping, complaints from neighbours, a warning sign, the dog being kept muzzled or chained because of its temperament, an earlier animal control citation, or veterinary records noting aggressive behaviour during handling.
The practical problem in Arkansas is that almost none of this material sits in one place, and most of it degrades. Municipal animal control records are held locally and are purged on local schedules. Neighbours move. Social media posts about a dog get deleted. The three-year filing window Arkansas allows is generous, and it regularly lulls claimants into starting the investigation in year two, by which point the evidence that would have carried the scienter burden is gone.
A warning sign deserves particular attention here, because it cuts both ways and Arkansas has no statute telling a court which way. A posted sign is evidence the owner knew the dog was dangerous, which helps a claimant on scienter. It is also evidence the claimant was warned, which helps the defense on comparative fault. Which effect dominates is fact-specific, and photographing the sign and its visibility at the scene is what makes the argument available either way.
The owner's own statements in the first minutes after an attack — often some version of an admission that the dog had done this before — are among the most valuable evidence in an Arkansas case, and among the first to be denied. Writing them down the same day, with who else heard them, is worth more than it sounds.
The Second Route: Ordinary Negligence and Local Leash Ordinances
A negligence claim does not require proving the dog's history at all. It asks whether the owner used reasonable care — a latched gate, a leash where a local ordinance required one, adequate confinement. Arkansas leash rules are municipal, so which ordinance applied depends on exactly where the attack occurred.
Arkansas has no statewide leash law. Little Rock, North Little Rock, Cabot, Fayetteville and most other municipalities have adopted their own restraint and confinement rules, and unincorporated county areas frequently have none. Establishing which rule was in force at the location of the bite is an early and genuinely determinative step, because an ordinance violation converts a difficult scienter case into a straightforward negligence one.
Beyond leash rules, ordinary negligence covers the failures that have nothing to do with temperament: a gate that had been broken for months, a tie-out long enough to reach a public footpath, a dog left loose in a fenced yard with a gap the owner knew about, or a dog handed to someone plainly unable to control it.
Landlords and businesses can also be reached in negligence where they controlled the premises and knew about a dangerous dog. That route matters commercially, because Arkansas dog owners in rental housing frequently carry no insurance at all while the property owner almost always does.
Recovery Stops at Fifty Percent Under Ark. Code § 16-64-122
Arkansas applies modified comparative fault. Where the claimant's fault is of a lesser degree than the defendant's, damages are reduced proportionally. Where the claimant's fault equals or exceeds the defendant's, recovery is barred entirely — so 50 percent is the cut-off, not 51.
The equal-to-or-greater formulation is stricter than Florida's or Illinois's 51 percent bar and much stricter than Alaska's pure comparative rule, and the practical consequence is that a provocation or trespass argument in Arkansas is aimed at a line rather than a discount. A defense that can push a claimant to exactly half the fault has defeated the claim, not reduced it, which changes how such arguments are priced in negotiation.
Arkansas also abolished joint and several liability by statute, so each defendant is severally liable for its own allocated share. Where a dog owner and a landlord are both at fault, an uninsured owner's share does not transfer to the landlord's insurer. Identifying and naming every responsible party early is therefore worth more in Arkansas than in a joint-liability state.
One favourable oddity: Arkansas's statutory cap on punitive damages, Ark. Code § 16-55-208, was held unconstitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518, as a legislative intrusion on the court's rule-making authority. Punitive awards in Arkansas are consequently uncapped by statute — rarely relevant to a dog bite claim, but not never, where an owner ignored repeated warnings about a dangerous animal.
Three Years to Sue, and the Age-21 Wrinkle in § 16-56-116
Ark. Code § 16-56-105 allows three years from the date of the injury — longer than most states. Section 16-56-116 then provides that a person under 21 when the cause of action accrued may sue within three years after attaining full age, which is a materially wider window than most states allow.
The statute's reference to 21 is a survival from an era when that was the age of majority in Arkansas; the age of majority is now 18, and the provision is generally applied as giving three years from the eighteenth birthday. It is nonetheless one of the more generous minor-tolling rules in the country, and the exact interaction of the statute's wording with the modern majority age is worth having an Arkansas attorney confirm against your own dates rather than assuming.
The three-year adult window is genuinely long — three times Tennessee's and Arizona's statutory period, longer than the two years allowed in Alabama, Alaska, Florida and Colorado. It is also the reason Arkansas files go stale. A scienter case depends on records and recollections that do not survive three years, and the deadline that feels comfortable in month two is the reason the case is unprovable in month thirty.
Claims against government entities in Arkansas run under a different framework, including statutory immunities for municipalities and the State Claims Commission process for claims against the state. A bite involving a police dog, a bite on public property, or a dog owned by a public employee acting within the scope of employment should be reviewed on that track immediately.
Criminal Charges, Restitution, and Little Rock's Dangerous Dog Process
Ark. Code § 5-62-125 makes it an offense to negligently allow a dog known to have a propensity to attack to attack someone, where the attack causes serious physical injury or death. It is a Class A misdemeanour, and the court may order the defendant to pay restitution for the victim's medical bills.
The criminal statute matters to a civil claimant for two reasons that have nothing to do with punishment. First, it is built on exactly the knowledge element a scienter claim has to prove, so a charge under § 5-62-125 means a prosecutor has already concluded there is evidence the owner knew — and the investigative file behind that conclusion is obtainable. Second, restitution under the section is a real route to medical costs where an owner has no insurance and no assets worth suing.
The statute has a high floor. It applies only where the attack caused serious physical injury or death, so most bites, including painful ones requiring stitches, will not trigger it even against an owner with a known dangerous dog.
At the municipal level, Little Rock's dangerous dog provisions sit in Chapter 6 of the city code and turn on behaviour rather than breed: a dog may be declared dangerous where it attacks or bites a person engaged in lawful activity without provocation, seriously injures another animal off the owner's property, or menacingly chases a person on public property while off leash. A declared dog must be securely confined indoors or in a locked enclosure built to prevent escape and to keep children out. Bites that break the skin must be reported to Little Rock Animal Services, and the animal is quarantined for ten days regardless of vaccination status — the shelter, the Little Rock Animal Village at 4500 Kramer Street, can be reached on (501) 376-3067.
Red means the owner's insurer can use it against you. Green means Arkansas has closed that argument off.
| Defense | Status | How it works in Arkansas |
|---|---|---|
| No knowledge of the dog’s dangerous propensity | Available | The central defense in Arkansas. Scienter is an element the claimant must prove, so an owner who genuinely had no notice defeats that theory — leaving only the negligence claim, which is why both are pleaded. |
| Claimant 50 percent or more at fault | Available | A complete bar under § 16-64-122, which stops recovery where the claimant’s fault equals or exceeds the defendant’s. Stricter than the 51 percent thresholds used in Florida and Illinois. |
| Posted warning sign | Limited | No statutory sign defense exists in Arkansas, and a sign genuinely cuts both ways — evidence the owner knew the dog was dangerous, and evidence the claimant was warned. Photographing it and its visibility is what makes either argument available. |
| No applicable leash ordinance | Limited | Arkansas has no statewide leash law. Where the attack happened in unincorporated county with no restraint rule, the negligence claim loses its clearest benchmark. |
| Fault apportioned to an unnamed party | Available | Arkansas abolished joint and several liability, so a share allocated to a landlord or handler who was never brought into the case is simply not recovered from anyone. |
| Breed of the dog | Not a defense | Arkansas assesses dangerousness by behaviour rather than breed, and Little Rock’s municipal definition is framed the same way. |
Modified comparative fault — barred at 50 percent, not 51. The statute bars recovery where the claimant’s fault is equal to or greater than the defendant’s, so the cut-off is 50 percent rather than the 51 percent used in Florida and Illinois. Arkansas also abolished joint and several liability, so each defendant pays only its allocated share.
Example: on a claim otherwise worth $100,000, being found 30% responsible would typically leave about $70,000 — but at 50% or more, Arkansas law bars recovery entirely.
Statute of Limitations in Arkansas
Arkansas allows three years from the date of the injury under Ark. Code § 16-56-105 — one of the more generous adult windows in the country, three times the one-year statutory period in Tennessee and Arizona and longer than the two years allowed in Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Colorado and Pennsylvania. For claimants who were minors when the claim accrued, § 16-56-116 is wider still: a person under 21 at accrual may bring the action within three years after attaining full age. The reference to 21 is a survival from a period when that was Arkansas's age of majority; the age of majority is now 18, and the provision is generally applied as allowing three years from the eighteenth birthday. That still leaves one of the broadest minor-tolling rules on this site, but the interaction between the statute's wording and the modern majority age is worth confirming with an Arkansas attorney against your own dates rather than relied on from a summary. The section also provides that where two disabilities coexisted at accrual, the limitation does not begin until both are removed. The practical risk in Arkansas is not the deadline but the evidence. A scienter claim is assembled from municipal animal control files, neighbour recollections and statements made in the first hour after an attack, and none of that survives three years reliably. Claims here fail for want of proof far more often than for want of time. Government defendants run on a different track, including statutory immunity provisions for municipalities and the Arkansas State Claims Commission process for claims against the state, so a bite by a police dog, a bite on public property, or a dog owned by a public employee acting within the scope of employment should be reviewed on that basis within weeks rather than years.
Dog bite law varies more between states than most people expect — the same attack can be a straightforward claim in one state and a difficult one across a state line.
| State | Rule | Statute | Deadline | Shared fault | What stands out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama dog bite laws | Mixed statute | Ala. Code § 3-6-1 | 2 years | Contributory (any fault bars) | The statute reaches bites on the owner’s property only, and § 3-6-3 cuts the claim to actual expenses where the owner knew nothing about the dog. |
| Alaska dog bite laws | One-bite / negligence | No statute (AS 09.17.010 caps damages) | 2 years | Pure comparative | Non-economic damages capped at $400,000 — or $1,000,000 where the injury is severe permanent disfigurement. |
| Arizona dog bite laws | Strict liability | A.R.S. § 11-1025 | 1 year (statutory) / 2 years (negligence) | Pure comparative | Shortest deadline in the country for the statutory claim; breed cannot be considered by any legal decision-maker. |
| Arkansas (this page) | One-bite rule | No civil statute (Ark. Code § 5-62-125 criminal) | 3 years | Modified (50% bar) | Recovery is barred at exactly 50 percent fault, not 51 — and a minor’s window runs three years past majority. |
| California dog bite laws | Strict liability | Civ. Code § 3342 | 2 years | Pure comparative | Minor's claim tolled until age 18; cities cannot ban dogs by breed. |
| Colorado dog bite laws | Mixed statute | C.R.S. § 13-21-124 | 2 years | Modified (50% bar) | Strict liability reaches economic damages only, and only on serious bodily injury. A posted "Beware of Dog" sign is a complete defense. |
| Connecticut dog bite laws | Strict liability | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 22-357 | 3 years (statutory) / 2 years (negligence) | Modified (51% bar) | Covers any damage a dog does, not just bites. A child under seven is presumed not to have trespassed or teased — the burden shifts to the defendant. |
| Delaware dog bite laws | Strict liability | 16 Del. C. § 3053F | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Animal control is run statewide by Delaware Animal Services rather than by each city — the only state on this site with a single centralised agency. |
| District of Columbia dog bite laws | Mixed statute | D.C. Code §§ 8-1808, 8-1812 | 3 years | Pure contributory — 1% bars all recovery | Letting a dog run at large is evidence of negligence, and lack of knowledge is no excuse — but any contributory fault at all still defeats the claim. |
| Florida dog bite laws | Strict liability | Fla. Stat. § 767.04 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | A posted "Bad Dog" sign is a complete defense — except against a child under 6. |
| Georgia dog bite laws | Mixed statute | O.C.G.A. § 51-2-7 | 2 years | Modified (50% bar) | A violated local leash ordinance is by itself sufficient proof of vicious propensity. Fault bar sits at 50%, not 51%. |
| Hawaii dog bite laws | Mixed statute | Haw. Rev. Stat. § 663-9 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | The statute removes the scienter requirement but not the need to prove unreasonable conduct — except for animals dangerous by species or nature, where liability is absolute. |
| Idaho dog bite laws | One-bite rule | No civil statute; Idaho Code § 25-2805 (at large) | 2 years | Modified (50% bar) | No strict liability statute. Recovery runs on scienter or negligence, and the fault bar sits at 50%, not 51%. |
| Illinois dog bite laws | Strict liability | 510 ILCS 5/16 | 2 years (1 year vs. a local public entity) | Modified (51% bar) | Covers attacks and attempted attacks with no bite, and "owner" includes anyone who keeps, harbors or has custody of the dog. |
| Indiana dog bite laws | Mixed statute | Ind. Code § 15-20-1-3 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Strict liability applies ONLY to people performing a duty imposed by law — mail carriers, meter readers, police. Everyone else gets the one-bite rule. |
| Iowa dog bite laws | Strict liability | Iowa Code § 351.28 | 2 years | Contributory negligence is not a defense | Unusually claimant-friendly: the only statutory defenses are that the victim was committing an unlawful act, or that the dog had rabies. |
| Kansas dog bite laws | One-bite rule | No civil statute — common-law scienter | 2 years | Modified (50% bar) | No dog bite statute, and the fault bar sits at 50%. Local leash ordinances do most of the practical work in establishing negligence. |
| Kentucky dog bite laws | Strict liability | KRS 258.235(4) | 1 year | Pure comparative | The statutory definition of "owner" is broad enough to make a landlord strictly liable — Maupin v. Tankersley (Ky. 2018). Only one year to file. |
| Louisiana dog bite laws | Strict liability | La. Civ. Code art. 2321 | 2 years (1 year before 1 July 2024) | Pure comparative | A civil-law jurisdiction. Prescription doubled from one year to two on 1 July 2024, and the change applies only to injuries arising after that date. |
| Maine dog bite laws | Mixed statute | 7 M.R.S. § 3961 | 6 years | Modified (50% bar) | The longest filing deadline in the country at six years — but strict liability applies only where the dog injured you OFF the owner's premises. |
| Maryland dog bite laws | Strict liability (at large) + presumption | Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-1901 | 3 years | Pure contributory (any fault bars) | Breed-neutral since a 2014 legislative reversal of Tracey v. Solesky — but pure contributory negligence stacked on genuine strict liability means any claimant fault, even 1%, can still zero out the claim. |
| Massachusetts dog bite laws | Strict liability (owners and keepers) | MGL c. 140, § 155 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Keeper liability runs against anyone temporarily caring for the dog — boarding kennels, dog walkers, pet sitters — on the same strict liability terms as the owner. Double damages are mandatory (not discretionary) where the owner had prior knowledge. |
| Michigan dog bite laws | Strict liability | MCL 287.351 | 3 years | Modified — bars non-economic damages only | Over 50% fault removes pain and suffering but not medical bills. Provocation is judged objectively, so an accidental act can count. |
| Minnesota dog bite laws | Strict liability | Minn. Stat. § 347.22 | 6 years | Modified (51% bar) | Six-year filing deadline — the longest of any strict liability state on this site. The statute covers any "attack or injury," not only bites, giving full protection to victims knocked down or injured by large dogs without being bitten. |
| Mississippi dog bite laws | One-bite rule | Miss. Code § 15-1-49 (no civil bite statute) | 3 years | Pure comparative | Mississippi is one of very few states with no civil dog bite statute — claims run on common law, requiring proof the owner knew the dog was dangerous before the attack. Mississippi's pure comparative fault rule means even a plaintiff with significant fault recovers a proportional share of damages. |
| Missouri dog bite laws | Strict liability | RSMo § 273.036 | 5 years | Pure comparative | Longest filing window on this list; minor's claim tolled to 21. |
| Montana dog bite laws | Strict liability | Mont. Code § 27-1-715 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Rural insurance market means coverage confirmation is a critical early investigation step — uninsured homeowners rates are higher in Montana than in most urban strict liability states on this site. |
| Nebraska dog bite laws | Strict liability | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 54-601 | 4 years | Modified (50% bar) | Four-year filing deadline — one of the longest of any strict liability state. § 54-601 covers "killing, wounding, injuring, worrying, or chasing" — broader than bite-only statutes. |
| Nevada dog bite laws | Negligence (no statute) | No dog bite statute — Glass v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Ct., 87 Nev. 321 (1971) | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | The only state here with no dog bite statute at all. Nevada rejected the one-bite rule in 1971 — claims run on ordinary negligence. |
| New Hampshire dog bite laws | Strict liability | RSA 466:19 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Defenses are statutory and narrow — only trespass and deliberate provocation (teasing, tormenting, abusing the dog) are complete defenses. Government entity claims require written notice within 60 days for municipal defendants under RSA 507-B:7. |
| New Jersey dog bite laws | Strict liability | N.J. Stat. § 4:19-16 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | One of the oldest strict liability statutes in the country (enacted 1933). Harboring liability extends to landlords and employers who knowingly permit a dangerous dog — both faces of the same claim, not alternatives. |
| New Mexico dog bite laws | One-bite rule | NMSA § 37-1-8 (no civil bite statute) | 3 years | Pure comparative | Government entity notice deadline is only 90 days under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act (NMSA § 41-4-16) — the shortest of any state on this site. Claims run on common law with no civil dog bite statute. |
| New York dog bite laws | Mixed statute | N.Y. Agric. & Mkts. Law § 123 | 3 years | Pure comparative | Strict liability covers medical and veterinary costs only. Flanders v. Goodfellow (Apr 2025) restored ordinary negligence claims after 19 years. |
| North Carolina dog bite laws | Mixed statute | N.C.G.S. §§ 67-4.4, 67-12 | 3 years | Pure contributory — 1% bars all recovery | The harshest fault rule in the country. Any contributory negligence at all, however slight, defeats the entire claim. |
| North Dakota dog bite laws | One-bite rule | NDCC 28-01-16(5) (no civil bite statute) | 6 years | Modified (50% bar) | Six-year filing deadline — the longest personal injury window of any state on this site. Modified 50% bar means a plaintiff at exactly 50% fault recovers nothing — stricter than the 51% bar in neighboring Wyoming and New Hampshire. |
| Ohio dog bite laws | Strict liability | Ohio Rev. Code § 955.28(B) | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Liability reaches the owner, keeper AND harborer. Avery's Law (Mar 2026) added a $100,000 insurance mandate for dangerous dogs. |
| Oklahoma dog bite laws | Strict liability | 4 O.S. § 42.1 | 2 years | Modified (50% bar) | Oklahoma's comparative fault bar falls at 50% — a plaintiff found exactly 50% at fault recovers nothing. This is one percentage point more restrictive than Oregon and New Jersey, where 50% plaintiff fault still allows a half-damages recovery. |
| Oregon dog bite laws | Strict liability | ORS 31.360 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Oregon bans breed-specific ordinances statewide under ORS 609.205 — no city or county may restrict or regulate dogs by breed. The liability analysis under ORS 31.360 is fully breed-neutral. |
| Pennsylvania dog bite laws | Mixed statute | 3 P.S. § 459-502 (Dog Law) | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Strict liability covers medical costs only. Pain and suffering requires proving a "severe injury" or the dog's dangerous propensities. |
| Rhode Island dog bite laws | Strict liability | RIGL § 4-13-16 | 3 years | Pure comparative | Pure comparative fault — recovery is never barred by victim fault, regardless of the percentage. A plaintiff found 90% at fault still recovers 10% of their damages. The most plaintiff-favorable comparative fault system in New England. |
| South Carolina dog bite laws | Strict liability | S.C. Code § 47-3-110 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Keeper liability is express in the statute — liability extends to any person having the dog "in their care or keeping," making dog walkers and boarding facilities directly liable on the same strict liability terms as the registered owner. |
| South Dakota dog bite laws | Strict liability | SDCL § 40-34-1 | 3 years | Slight/gross doctrine | Extends strict liability to "keepers and harborers" — not just the registered owner. Uses unique "slight/gross" comparative negligence rather than standard percentage-based fault. Government entity claims require 180-day written notice under SDCL § 3-21-2. |
| Tennessee dog bite laws | Mixed statute | Tenn. Code Ann. § 44-8-413 | 1 year | Modified (50% bar) | The only state with a "residential exclusion" — strict liability drops away if the bite happened on the owner's own residential or farm property. |
| Texas dog bite laws | One-bite rule | No statute — Marshall v. Ranne, 511 S.W.2d 255 (Tex. 1974) | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | No dog bite statute. Recovery requires proving the owner knew of the dog's dangerous propensities, or ordinary negligent handling. |
| Utah dog bite laws | Strict liability | Utah Code § 18-1-1 | 4 years | Modified (50% bar) | Four-year filing deadline — one of the longest of any strict liability state in the country. Utah's statute also has no express lawful-presence language, making the reach of strict liability potentially broader than states with that textual limitation. |
| Vermont dog bite laws | Strict liability | 20 V.S.A. § 3461 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Statute requires victim to have been "peaceably conducting himself or herself" in a lawful location — courts interpret this narrowly to exclude only deliberate provocateurs, not ordinary people in normal activity. Vermont's rural character means farm policies rather than homeowners insurance are common in agricultural-area cases. |
| Virginia dog bite laws | One-bite rule | No civil statute — common-law one-bite rule | 2 years | Pure contributory (any fault bars) | Two compounding disadvantages for victims: no strict liability statute (must prove owner's prior knowledge) plus pure contributory negligence (any fault bars entirely). Strict liability only available after a prior "dangerous dog" designation under § 3.2-6553. |
| Washington dog bite laws | Strict liability | RCW 16.08.040 | 3 years | Pure comparative | Broad strict liability, but provocation is a COMPLETE defense — and a fenced or posted property removes the implied consent that makes you lawfully present. |
| West Virginia dog bite laws | Strict liability | W. Va. Code § 19-20-13 | 2 years | Modified (51% bar) | Harboring theory expressly extends strict liability to landlords who knowingly allowed a dangerous dog on their rental property — a second defendant category not available in most strict liability states. |
| Wisconsin dog bite laws | Strict liability | Wis. Stat. § 174.02 | 3 years | Modified (51% bar) | Double damages are mandatory by statute — not discretionary — whenever the owner was notified or knew the dog had previously injured someone. The entire damages award doubles automatically once prior knowledge is established. |
| Wyoming dog bite laws | One-bite rule | Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105 (no civil bite statute) | 4 years | Modified (51% bar) | Four-year filing deadline — the longest of any one-bite rule state on this site. Modified 51% bar means a plaintiff at exactly 50% fault still recovers half their damages, unlike neighboring one-bite states. |
Arkansas dog bite questions, answered
The questions Arkansas readers ask most often. General information, not legal advice.
Does Arkansas have a dog bite statute?
No civil one. Arkansas has never enacted a statute making a dog owner automatically liable, so a claim runs on common-law scienter — proving the owner knew or had reason to know the dog was dangerous — or on ordinary negligence. The only dog-specific statute is criminal: Ark. Code § 5-62-125, which applies where a known dangerous dog causes serious physical injury or death.
What counts as proof that an Arkansas owner knew the dog was dangerous?
A prior bite is the clearest evidence, but it is not the only route. Prior lunging or snapping, complaints from neighbours, a posted warning sign, the dog being kept chained or muzzled because of its temperament, an earlier animal control citation, or veterinary notes about aggressive behaviour can all establish notice. The practical difficulty is that most of this material is held locally and purged well inside Arkansas’s three-year filing window.
Can I recover if I was partly at fault in Arkansas?
Only if your share is less than the defendant’s. Ark. Code § 16-64-122 reduces damages proportionally where your fault is of a lesser degree, but bars recovery entirely where it equals or exceeds theirs — so the cut-off is 50 percent, not the 51 percent used in Florida and Illinois. A defense that reaches exactly half has defeated the claim rather than discounted it.
How long do I have to file a dog bite claim in Arkansas?
Three years from the date of the injury under Ark. Code § 16-56-105 — one of the longer adult windows in the country. The risk is not the deadline but the evidence: a scienter claim is assembled from municipal animal control files, neighbour recollections and things an owner said in the first hour, and none of that survives three years reliably.
Is a child’s claim in Arkansas paused until they turn 18?
It is paused, and generously. Ark. Code § 16-56-116(a) allows a person who was under 21 when the cause of action accrued to sue within three years after attaining full age. The reference to 21 predates Arkansas lowering its age of majority to 18, and the provision is generally applied as three years from the eighteenth birthday — still one of the widest minor-tolling rules on this site, but worth confirming with an Arkansas attorney against your own dates.
If a landlord and the dog’s owner are both at fault, who pays what?
Each pays only its own allocated share. Arkansas abolished joint and several liability, so where a tenant’s dog bites someone and the tenant carries no renters insurance, the landlord’s policy does not absorb the tenant’s percentage. Identifying and naming every responsible party early is therefore worth real money here.
Are punitive damages capped in Arkansas?
No. Ark. Code § 16-55-208, the statutory punitive cap, was held unconstitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518, as an intrusion on the court’s rule-making authority. Punitive awards are rarely at issue in a dog bite claim, but the fact pattern where they are — an owner who ignored repeated warnings about a dog known to be dangerous — is not unusual.
How does Little Rock decide a dog is dangerous?
By behaviour, not breed. Under Chapter 6 of the city code a dog may be declared dangerous where it attacks or bites a person engaged in lawful activity without provocation, seriously injures another domesticated animal off the owner’s property, menacingly chases a person on public property while off leash and out of control, or has been similarly designated elsewhere. A declared dog must be confined indoors or in a locked enclosure built to prevent escape and keep the public out. Bites that break the skin must be reported, and the animal is quarantined for ten days regardless of vaccination status.
Key Takeaways for Arkansas Dog Bite Victims
Arkansas follows the One-Bite Rule standard — that determines whether you need to prove the owner's prior knowledge or can hold them liable automatically. Understanding which standard applies is the first step in knowing whether you have a viable claim.
Your filing deadline is fixed by state law. Missing it permanently closes your case, no matter how strong the evidence is. Start the clock from the date of the bite.
Document everything from day one — photos of the injury, medical records, the dog owner's name, and any witness contact details. That documentation is the single most controllable factor in how much you ultimately recover.
Ready to understand what your case may be worth? See Arkansas settlement amounts or connect with a Arkansas dog bite lawyer for a free case review.
Sources & References
- 📄Ark. Code § 16-114-208 — Arkansas primary statute (Justia)
- 📊CDC Dog Bite Prevention — national injury statistics and prevention guidance
- ⚖️American Bar Association — Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice