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Colorado makes a dog owner strictly liable, but only for part of the harm and only after a bad bite. Under C.R.S. 13-21-124, a person who suffers serious bodily injury or death from a dog bite while lawfully on public or private property can recover economic damages from the dog owner, whether or not the dog had ever shown aggression. Everything else, including pain and suffering and any bite short of serious bodily injury, has to be won through a second claim: the common law rule for dogs known to be dangerous, ordinary negligence, or the Colorado Premises Liability Act when the bite happened on someone’s land.
This page walks through both tracks, what counts as serious bodily injury, who counts as a dog owner, the six statutory exclusions, Colorado’s 50 percent fault bar, a child’s case, landlord liability, filing deadlines and the 182 day government notice, damages under the caps that changed on January 1, 2025, the dangerous dog statute, rabies reporting, and insurance.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Colorado is a hybrid state. It has a dog bite statute, but the statute is narrow, and most real cases run on two tracks at once.
The first track is C.R.S. 13-21-124, in force since April 21, 2004. It lets a person who suffers “serious bodily injury or death from being bitten by a dog while lawfully on public or private property” bring a civil action to recover economic damages against the dog owner, regardless of the dog’s viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it. That is true strict liability: no prior bite, no warning signs, no carelessness to prove. But it pays only economic damages, meaning medical bills, lost income, and other out of pocket loss.
The second track is the older law, which the statute expressly leaves alone. Section 13-21-124(6) says nothing in it affects any other cause of action based on negligence, intentional tort, or other theories. Colorado’s pattern jury instruction for that claim, CJI-Civ 13:1, asks whether the dog had vicious or dangerous tendencies and whether the owner knew or had notice of them. Where the property owner is the defendant, the Premises Liability Act takes over instead.
So Colorado is partly a one bite state and partly not. If your injury is serious, the statute covers your bills without any history. If you want compensation for pain, scarring, and fear, or your injury falls short of the statutory line, the dog’s history and the owner’s conduct still decide the case.
On the statutory claim, CJI-Civ 13:3 lists the elements a jury considers. The defendant owned, kept, or had control or custody of the dog. You were bitten by that dog. You were lawfully on the property where it happened. You suffered serious bodily injury, or the victim died. And the bite caused that injury.
The phrase that decides whether the statute applies is serious bodily injury. The statute borrows its definition from the criminal code, C.R.S. 18-1-901(3)(p): bodily injury that, at the time or later, involves a substantial risk of death, a substantial risk of serious permanent disfigurement, a substantial risk of protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part or organ of the body, or breaks, fractures, or second or third degree burns. A bite that breaks a bone fits the definition’s express words. A deep facial bite or a hand bite that damages tendons can qualify when the medical evidence shows a substantial risk of serious permanent disfigurement or of protracted loss of function. A wound that carries none of those risks and involves no break or burn does not meet the definition, even if it needed stitches.
Lawful presence has its own definition in 13-21-124(4). You count as lawfully there if you were doing a duty imposed by law, were on the property by express or implied invitation of the owner, or were on your own property. A mail carrier, a guest, a customer, and a neighbor bitten in their own yard all fit.
The common law claim asks something different: that the dog had vicious or dangerous tendencies, that the owner knew or had notice of them, and that this caused your injury. Colorado’s jury instruction committee notes real uncertainty over whether you must also show the owner failed to use reasonable care, and in N.M. v. Trujillo (2017) the Supreme Court of Colorado left that question open, so expect to prove that too. The evidence is the dog’s past: earlier bites, complaints to animal control, warnings the owner gave or received.
Colorado statutes hand leash and at large rules to local government. C.R.S. 30-15-101 lets a county adopt a resolution requiring that dogs be under control at all times, C.R.S. 31-15-401(1)(m) lets a city regulate or prohibit animals running at large, and the state’s dangerous dog statute expressly preserves a county’s authority to adopt its own dog control and licensing resolutions. So the rule where you were bitten depends on the city or county code.
A leash violation matters differently on each track. On the strict liability claim it adds nothing you need, because 13-21-124 already makes the owner pay economic damages without any proof of fault. On the negligence side it can matter a great deal. Colorado recognizes negligence per se, and under Bittle v. Brunetti it can rest on an ordinance if you are in the class of people the ordinance was meant to protect and your injury is the type it was meant to prevent. Whether a particular leash ordinance meets that test is a question for your lawyer.
Either way, get the citation. An animal control report that says the dog was off leash and off the owner’s property is a dated official record of how the dog reached you, and it is far harder for an insurer to dispute than your memory.
One limit on the other side: under Calkins v. Albi, a 1967 Supreme Court of Colorado decision, a child under ten cannot be found negligent per se, because children that young cannot be found guilty of an offense under Colorado law. That protects young victims from the reverse argument that they broke some rule themselves.
Colorado defines the target of the statute broadly. Under 13-21-124(1)(c), a dog owner is “a person, firm, corporation, or organization owning, possessing, harboring, keeping, having financial or property interest in, or having control or custody of, a dog.” The dangerous dog statute uses the same list.
That reaches well past the name on the license. It covers:
More than one person can qualify, and naming every one of them matters because the insurance follows the person. The owner’s homeowners policy and the dog walker’s renters policy may both be in play.
Separately, the statute excludes certain professionals acting in their duties: veterinary health care workers, dog groomers, humane agency staff, professional dog handlers, trainers, and dog show judges. If you were bitten while doing any of that work, tell your lawyer on the first call.
Section 13-21-124(5) lists six situations where a dog owner is not liable for a bite:
In Legro v. Robinson (2012), the Colorado Court of Appeals said that under the statute “a defendant may avoid liability by proving one of the statutory exclusions,” so the burden of proving them falls on the owner. Two deserve a closer look.
Provocation must be knowing: the statute’s words are “knowingly provoking the dog.” The beware of dog sign is the more surprising one. It applies only on the dog owner’s own property, and only if the sign was clear and conspicuous, so photograph the gate, the fence, and the sign (or the absence of one) as soon as you can.
On working dogs, the Supreme Court of Colorado decided Robinson v. Legro in 2014, a case where a mountain bike racer was attacked by two predator control dogs guarding sheep on federal land held under a grazing permit. The court read the exclusion to apply when the bite happens on the owner’s property or when the dog is working under the owner’s control, and sent the case back to decide which, if either, was true.
Assumption of risk is not a separate bar; by statute it is weighed as part of your share of fault.
Colorado uses modified comparative negligence with the line drawn at half. C.R.S. 13-21-111 lets you recover if your negligence “was not as great as” the negligence of the person you are suing, with your damages cut in proportion. If your share is “equal to or greater than” theirs, the court enters judgment for the defendant.
Put in numbers: at 20 percent fault, a $100,000 award becomes $80,000. At 49 percent you keep 51 percent of your damages. At 50 percent you recover nothing.
Three more Colorado rules shape the fight:
Colorado law treats child victims differently in three ways.
Fault. Under Benallo v. Bare, a 1967 Supreme Court of Colorado decision, a child under seven is incapable of being contributorily negligent as a matter of law. An older child is judged by what can fairly be expected of a child of like age, intelligence, and experience, as the court applied in Calkins v. Albi. So an insurer cannot reduce a four year old’s claim by blaming the four year old.
Parents. A parent’s negligence cannot be charged to the child. But in Paris v. Dance, a 2008 dog bite case, the Colorado Court of Appeals allowed the defendants to name the child’s mother as a nonparty at fault for failing to supervise. The court said this weighs the mother’s own negligence rather than charging it to the child, but under Colorado’s pro rata rule a share of fault assigned to her can reduce, or even eliminate, what the dog owner pays. Expect that argument whenever a parent was nearby.
Time. A child generally has until two years after turning 18 to sue, under C.R.S. 13-81-103. There is a catch: if a court appoints a guardian or conservator for the child, the ordinary limitation period applies instead, though the court-appointed representative always has at least two years from the appointment to sue. Parents acting on their own are not court-appointed representatives. And in Elgin v. Bartlett the Supreme Court of Colorado held that no tolling applies to the parents’ own derivative claims. Treat the claim for the medical bills you paid as running on the adult two year clock from the bite.
When a child is bitten on the face or head, Colorado’s serious bodily injury test (substantial risk of serious permanent disfigurement) and its disfigurement rule on damages both come into play. Do not accept an early offer before a plastic surgeon has said how the scar will mature.
When a bite happens on someone’s land and you sue the person who controls that land, Colorado’s Premises Liability Act, C.R.S. 13-21-115, governs. Colorado courts have held that it displaces common law claims against the landowner for a dog injury on the property, most recently in Legro v. Robinson. What the landowner owed you depends on why you were there:
The act matters even when the dog owner is the landowner, because it is the route to damages the statute does not pay. In Legro, the Court of Appeals held that the act does not wipe out the statutory claim: a victim may seek economic damages from the dog owner under 13-21-124 and, where the owner also qualifies as a landowner, “damages beyond economic damages” under the Premises Liability Act.
Landlords are harder. In Wilson v. Marchiondo, a 2005 case about a Rottweiler bite in a rented backyard, the Court of Appeals treated the act as the only route against a landlord and held that a landlord who has handed possession to a tenant is generally no longer a person in possession under it. Keeping a right to repair usually is not enough. So a landlord who leased a house to a dog owner and walked away is rarely liable. Common areas are different. Colorado courts treat tenants, and tenants’ guests, as a landlord’s invitees in common areas the landlord controls, and in Willis v. Twin Shores Master Owners Association (2025) the Court of Appeals held that a unit owner’s guest is an invitee of the homeowners association for common elements the association owns and controls.
Two years. C.R.S. 13-80-102 gives two years for tort actions and for “all actions for strict liability,” so both tracks of a Colorado case share one deadline. A claim accrues when both the injury and its cause are known, which for a dog bite is almost always the day it happens.
The government notice rule under C.R.S. 24-10-109 is unforgiving. Compliance is a jurisdictional prerequisite and failure “shall forever bar” the action. The notice must give your name and address, the facts with date, time, and place, any public employee involved, the nature of the injury, and the amount you are seeking. It goes to the attorney general for a state claim, or to the governing body or its attorney for any other public entity. Public entities are also immune from most tort claims unless the Governmental Immunity Act waives it, and the dog bite statute says it does not change that act.
Treat all of these as outer limits. The evidence that wins a Colorado case, from the quarantine record to the photos of a fresh wound, disappears in weeks.
In Colorado the type of injury is not only a medical question. It decides which law applies. The statute draws two lines. Bodily injury means physical injury causing severe bruising, muscle tears, or skin lacerations that need professional treatment, or any injury needing corrective or cosmetic surgery. Serious bodily injury is the higher criminal code standard, and only that opens the strict liability claim.
In People v. Vigil, a 2021 criminal case applying the same definition, the Supreme Court of Colorado held that “the facts of the actual injury control the substantial risk of death determination,” not the risk generally associated with that type of injury. That makes medical records the core of the case: a surgeon’s note that a laceration carries a risk of permanent scarring is worth more than any description of how frightening the attack was.
Colorado splits the money by claim. The statute pays economic damages: past and future medical care, lost wages, lost earning capacity, and out of pocket costs. Noneconomic damages, which Colorado defines as “pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress, and impairment of the quality of life,” come through the common law, negligence, or premises claim.
Those noneconomic damages are capped, and the cap changed recently. House Bill 24-1472, signed June 3, 2024, raised it from a $250,000 base to $1.5 million for claims that accrue on or after January 1, 2025, adjusted for inflation every two years starting in 2028. The same $1.5 million figure also applies to any case filed during 2025. A bite in 2025 or 2026 falls under the new figure, and cases filed before 2025 stay under the earlier, lower limit. The jury is never told about the cap; the judge applies it afterward.
Disfigurement gets special treatment. Section 13-21-102.5(5) says nothing in the cap statute limits “the recovery of compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement.” In Pringle v. Valdez, the Supreme Court of Colorado held that physical impairment and disfigurement are “a separate category of damages” and “not included in the meaning of noneconomic damages.”
Other Colorado rules:
For more on value, see our page on dog bite settlement amounts.
Colorado’s statewide dangerous dog law is a criminal statute. C.R.S. 18-9-204.5 makes it a crime to own a dangerous dog, defined as one that inflicts bodily or serious bodily injury on, or kills, a person or domestic animal, or that shows tendencies that would make a reasonable person believe it may do so. A dog trained for fighting also qualifies.
The penalties climb with the harm:
On conviction the court must order the owner to confine the dog in an escape-proof enclosure, leash it outside, post a warning sign, microchip it, and disclose the conviction to groomers, vets, and any future owner. Where the dog caused serious bodily injury or death, the court must order it confiscated and euthanized once appeals end. The statute has its own defenses, including that the victim tormented, provoked, or abused the dog “in such an extreme manner” that it caused the attack.
Two points tie this to your civil claim. First, the criminal court must order the owner to make restitution when a dangerous dog violation results in bodily injury, serious bodily injury, or death to a person. Second, in a civil case where the owner’s knowledge is proved, 13-21-124(3) lets the court order the dog euthanized on the victim’s motion.
On breed, the statute says no city or county rule may regulate dangerous dogs in a manner specific to breed. House Bill 25-1034, effective August 6, 2025, narrowed the statute’s exemption for vets, groomers, handlers, and trainers so that it covers bodily injury to them but no longer serious bodily injury. The statute also leaves cities free to adopt their own dangerous dog rules and preserves counties’ dog control resolutions, so ask the responding officer what local process applies where you were bitten.
Under C.R.S. 25-4-603, every physician who treats a person bitten by a dog, and “any person having knowledge thereof,” must report it to the health department or health officer. In practice the report goes to your local public health agency or to animal control. Make it yourself rather than counting on the emergency room, because the report starts the quarantine and creates the first official record of the bite.
The health officer then serves notice on the owner to confine the dog at the owner’s expense, at home or at a pound or other place, under 25-4-604, and the officer may examine the dog at any time during confinement. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s guidance calls for a mandatory 10 day quarantine of a dog that bites a person, with county animal control choosing where it happens. A vaccinated pet may be allowed to stay home.
What the 10 days tell you: according to the department’s rabies FAQ, if a dog is alive 10 days after biting someone, it did not have rabies at the time of the bite. The department also says not to kill or dispose of a biting dog, because it may need to be observed or tested. Whether you need rabies shots is a decision for you and your doctor with the health department’s advice.
Some Colorado context. Bats and skunks are the main sources of rabies in the state, and the department’s disease manual reports an average of 157 animals testing positive each year from 2011 to 2020. It notes the risk of rabies from a dog is higher on the Front Range and eastern plains than in the mountains or on the Western Slope, and that Colorado has had no known human rabies case since 1931.
We have not found a published average settlement figure for Colorado dog bite cases, and no Colorado court or agency we know of publishes one. The best available insurance data is national. For 2025, the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm reported an average dog related injury claim of $65,450 across the country, in an article that names several states but not Colorado. That is an insurer’s average across claims of every size, not a prediction for any one case.
What actually moves a Colorado number:
Our page on the average dog bite settlement in Colorado works through these factors, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough range. Be wary of any number offered before someone has read your medical records.
In most Colorado dog bite cases the money comes from a homeowners or renters liability policy, not from the owner directly. The Insurance Information Institute says these policies typically cover dog bite liability up to the policy limit, usually $100,000 to $300,000, with the owner responsible for anything above that.
Colorado also limits breed-based underwriting. Since January 1, 2024, under a law passed as House Bill 23-1068, a homeowners or dwelling fire insurer may not refuse to issue, cancel, refuse to renew, or raise the premium on a policy because of the breed or mix of breeds of a dog at the home. The insurer may not even ask about breed, except to ask whether the dog is known to be dangerous or has been declared dangerous. House Bill 25-1207, effective August 6, 2025, extended the same rule to commercial policies for multifamily buildings and to policies covering the contents of a home occupied by an owner or renter, for policies issued or renewed after that date.
For a bite victim, that has a practical meaning. A dog’s breed alone is not a lawful reason for a covered insurer to have refused, canceled, or declined to renew the owner’s policy, so do not accept “there is no insurance” without seeing it in writing. The exception remains: an insurer can still act on a dog that is known or declared to be dangerous, which is one more reason the dog’s history matters.
Ask early for the owner’s carrier and policy number, and check whether the person who had the dog that day has a policy of their own.
When you are ready, contact us and we will walk through the claim with you.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and Colorado is a state where the structure of the law decides the outcome. The statute pays only for serious injuries and only economic loss, so the work is in building the second claim: proving the dog’s history, identifying every owner, keeper, and landowner, and fitting the case to the Premises Liability Act when the bite happened on someone’s property. It also means documenting the medical record so serious bodily injury and disfigurement are proved, not argued.
We deal with the insurers so you do not have to, and we watch for the moves that cost Colorado victims money: a beware of dog sign raised after the fact, a nonparty designation that shifts fault to a parent, or an argument that pushes your share of fault toward 50 percent. We work on a contingency fee, so there is nothing to pay up front and no fee unless we recover money for you. Founding attorney Michael Agruss built the firm around injured clients who need someone else to carry the paperwork.
We take dog bite cases across Colorado, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, and Pueblo. If you or your child was bitten, reach out for a free consultation. We will tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth bringing. You can also browse dog bite law in other states on our dog bites page.
Partly. C.R.S. 13-21-124 holds a dog owner strictly liable, with no need to show the dog was dangerous before, but only for economic damages and only when the bite caused serious bodily injury or death to someone lawfully where they were. Pain and suffering, and claims for lesser bites, require a negligence, common law, or premises liability claim that looks at the dog's history and the owner's conduct.
Colorado uses its criminal code definition. The injury must involve a substantial risk of death, a substantial risk of serious permanent disfigurement, a substantial risk of protracted loss or impairment of a body part or organ, or a break, fracture, or second or third degree burn. Deep facial wounds and hand injuries that damage tendons can meet it when the medical evidence shows that kind of risk. The risk can show up later, such as through infection.
It can, but only in a narrow situation. The statutory defense applies when the bite happened on the dog owner's own property and the property was clearly and conspicuously posted with a no trespassing or beware of dog sign. It does not cover a bite on a sidewalk, in a park, or on your own property. Photograph the sign, where it was placed, and whether it could be seen from where you entered.
Two years from the bite for an adult, under C.R.S. 13-80-102, for both the strict liability and negligence claims. A child usually has until age 20 unless a court appoints a guardian or conservator. Parents' claims for their child's bills are not extended. If a government entity is involved, a written notice of claim is due within 182 days, and missing it bars the case.
Sometimes, but it is difficult. Claims against a landowner run through the Premises Liability Act, and the Colorado Court of Appeals has held that a landlord who turned possession of a rental over to the tenant generally is not a person in possession under that act. A landlord or homeowners association that controls a common area where the bite happened can owe visitors there the higher duty owed to invitees.
Yes, for noneconomic loss only. For claims arising on or after January 1, 2025, pain, suffering, and emotional stress are capped at $1.5 million under HB24-1472. Medical bills and lost wages are not capped, and the cap statute says it does not limit compensation for physical impairment or disfigurement. Claims against a public entity face a lower overall limit.
Colorado law requires a physician who treats a dog bite, and anyone else who knows about it, to report it to the local health department or health officer. File your own report with local public health or animal control anyway. It triggers the 10 day quarantine that tells you whether the dog could have had rabies, and it creates the dated record your claim relies on.
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