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In Arkansas, the rules for a dog bite claim come from the courts. A dog’s owner is strictly liable for a bite if the dog had a propensity to injure people and the owner knew, or should have known, about it. When that history cannot be proved, a victim can still recover by showing the owner was negligent, for example by letting the dog run loose against a city leash ordinance. Arkansas puts no cap on damages, and its fault rule bars a victim only when the victim’s share of the blame is equal to or greater than the share of the people being sued.
This page covers both routes to compensation, leash ordinances, who counts as an owner or keeper, trespass and provocation, comparative fault, a child’s case, why landlords are rarely liable here, deadlines and government defendants, damages, the criminal unlawful dog attack law, city dangerous dog and breed rules, reporting and rabies, settlement value, and insurance.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Arkansas dog bite law was built case by case by the Arkansas Supreme Court over more than a century, and it gives a bite victim two ways to recover.
The first is strict liability for a dog known to be dangerous. In Holt v. Leslie, decided in 1915, the court said that a person who knowingly keeps a vicious or dangerous dog is liable for its injuries “without proof of negligence as to the manner in which the animal was kept and handled.” In Van Houten v. Pritchard (1994) the court gave the classic example: an owner who keeps a known vicious dog in a steel cage, takes extreme care, and still has it escape and attack a passerby is liable regardless of those precautions.
People call this the one bite rule, but the Arkansas Supreme Court has said that label is “out of harmony” with a modern humanitarian society and with its own holdings. The test is whether the owner had notice that the dog was inclined to injure people, not whether it had already bitten someone.
The second route is ordinary negligence. In Bolstad v. Pergeson (1991) the court said strict liability applies only where a vicious dog is involved, and that otherwise negligence is the right theory. A negligence claim asks whether the owner failed to use ordinary care, and a broken leash ordinance is evidence that the owner did. The woman bitten in Hamby v. Haskins pleaded both.
For the strict liability claim, the test comes from Bradley v. Hendricks (1972): the victim must show “that the animal has vicious tendencies or dangerous propensities and that the owner knew, or should have known, of such tendencies or propensities.” Add proof that the dog caused the injury and proof of the losses, and the claim is complete. The owner’s carefulness does not matter once those are shown.
Arkansas cases make that test easier to meet than it sounds:
For the negligence claim, the victim proves a duty, a breach, and that the breach caused the injury. Arkansas treats the existence of a duty as a question of law for the judge, and that is where these cases are won or lost. In Van Houten the court held there is no duty to control a domestic animal that is not likely to do harm, unless an ordinance or statute says otherwise. So a negligence claim needs something more than a loose dog: a leash ordinance the owner broke, or proof that the owner knew or reasonably should have known the dog was likely to cause injury and still let it run at large, the duty described in Bolstad v. Pergeson.
The leash and at-large rules in the Arkansas dog cases come from city ordinances, such as Fayetteville’s in Bolstad and Conway’s in Bryant v. Putnam. State law has given cities the power “to prevent the running at large of dogs” since 1875, as the Supreme Court explained in Weeks v. City of Paragould. That makes the local ordinance where you were bitten an important document.
In Bolstad v. Pergeson, a dog running loose in a hospital parking lot crashed into a stopped car. The owner had let it out to chase squirrels, in a city that prohibited dogs from running at large. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that violating the leash ordinance “would be some evidence of negligence,” and affirmed the judgment against the owner. The dog had never crashed into a car before, and that did not matter: the owner only had to foresee that some injury was likely, not the particular one that happened.
This matters most when the dog had no known history. Without an ordinance, Arkansas recognizes no duty to restrain an ordinary dog. With one, the victim has a negligence claim even if the owner swears the dog was gentle. A history of running loose matters too: in Bolstad, the dog had run at large and chased squirrels before, which helped show that some injury was foreseeable.
Who is responsible for a dog comes from the cases. The legal owner is the obvious defendant, but the rule reaches further.
Holt v. Leslie involved an express company holding a bulldog at a rail depot during shipping. Warnings were printed on the crate, and there was evidence the agent had been told the dog was dangerous. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the company, as a bailee in possession of a dog it knew to be vicious, was liable to the same extent as an owner. It quoted the rule that one who has charge of a vicious dog, whether as owner or bailee, knowing it to be vicious, must restrain it, and it treated the agent’s knowledge as the company’s.
So a person or business that had custody of a dog it knew to be vicious can be responsible like an owner, and a business can be charged with what its employee knew. If ownership is unclear, read what determines ownership of a dog.
A 2024 case shows the limits. In Hollingsworth v. Lonely Creek Kennels, a kennel worker was attacked by a customer’s boarded bull mastiff that the customer had described as gentle and that had caused no problems in about six weeks. The Court of Appeals of Arkansas affirmed judgment for the kennel, holding it had no duty to ask specifically whether the dog had ever bitten anyone. The invitee rule the court applied makes a property owner liable for an unreasonable risk it knows of and the invitee does not.
Defenses in an Arkansas dog case come from the court decisions and the comparative fault statute.
Trespass. Holt v. Leslie stated the strict liability rule with an exception for trespassers. In Hamby v. Haskins, a woman looking for a garage sale walked up to a rural house to ask directions, knocked, got no answer, and was bitten on her way back to the car. The owner called her a trespasser, the jury was instructed on the duty owed to a trespasser, and it still found for her. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed, said that instruction “may have been more favorable than necessary,” and quoted the principle that a traveler who has lost her way may assume it is fine to go to a neighboring house for directions, calling it applicable to her case.
Provocation. Arkansas’s pattern jury instruction once barred recovery if the victim did something a reasonably careful person would know was likely to provoke the animal. In Strange v. Stovall (1977) the Supreme Court recounted why that proviso was removed: according to the drafters’ comment, it made the victim’s own negligence a complete defense, contrary to the comparative negligence statute. The court agreed the instruction “did need surgery,” and it did not rule out that comparative fault might arise in some situations. For background, read about dog bite provocation.
Assumption of risk. In Ouachita Wilderness Institute v. Mergen (1997) the Supreme Court said assumption of the risk “is no longer applicable in Arkansas as a separate theory” because the jury compares fault under the comparative fault statute, which defines fault to include “risk assumed.” So a risk the victim took reduces an award rather than ending the case, unless it pushes the victim’s share to half or more.
Arkansas uses modified comparative fault, and the line sits at half. Under Arkansas Code section 16-64-122, if the injured person’s fault is “of a lesser degree” than the fault of the people being sued, the injured person recovers damages reduced in proportion to that fault. If it is “equal to or greater in degree,” there is no recovery. The Civil Justice Reform Act of 2003 states that it did not change the rule that a plaintiff whose own fault is 50 percent or greater recovers nothing.
Work the numbers. A victim found 30 percent at fault recovers 70 percent of the damages. At 49 percent, the victim recovers 51 percent. At 50 percent, nothing.
Whether a victim’s fault reduces a strict liability recovery for a known vicious dog is not fully settled. In Strange v. Stovall the Supreme Court said it did not rule out that comparative fault might arise in some situations. Expect the insurer to argue it anyway, and expect the fight to be over what you did in the seconds before the bite.
Several of the reported Arkansas dog bite cases involve children. Bradley v. Hendricks involved a three-year-old bitten on the face and ear while playing in a neighbor’s yard. In Strange v. Stovall a 13-year-old was attacked on Christmas Day while walking to her grandparents’ house next door. Mills v. Finch, the landlord case below, involved a seven-year-old playing in her own yard.
The deadline is longer for the child. Arkansas Code section 16-56-116, as quoted by the Court of Appeals of Arkansas, lets a person who was a minor when the claim arose bring it “within three (3) years next after attaining full age.”
The parent’s claim is different. In Bradley the father sued as next friend for his son’s injuries and in his own name for the medical expenses he paid. Treat a parent’s own claim for those bills as running three years from the bite, and do not let the child’s longer clock lull a family into waiting.
The child’s own behavior. Insurers often say a child provoked the dog. Arkansas compares fault rather than barring the claim outright, and the owner has the burden of proving the child was at fault. If an adjuster is blaming your child, read whether a child can provoke a dog.
The Department of Health treats bites to the head, face, and neck as special circumstances in its rabies rule. An early settlement offer made before anyone knows how a facial scar will settle, or whether revision surgery will be needed, deserves caution.
On this point Arkansas law strongly favors landlords. The state’s appellate courts have held that a landlord owes no duty to protect third parties from a tenant’s dog, even when the landlord knows the dog is dangerous.
The rule began with Bryant v. Putnam (1995). A man walking on a street next to a rental house in Conway was attacked by the tenant’s rottweiler and pit bull. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the landlords, agreeing that Arkansas law imposes no liability on a landlord to third parties injured by a tenant’s animals, and saying the leash ordinance and the dog cases pertain to owners and keepers, not landlords.
In Bryant there was no proof the landlords knew the dogs were dangerous, which left room to argue about a landlord who did know. The Court of Appeals of Arkansas closed that door in Mills v. Finch, decided February 24, 2010. A seven-year-old was attacked in her own yard by a dog from a nearby rental, and her mother alleged the landlord knew the dog was vicious. The court held a landlord has no duty to protect third parties from a tenant’s animals “even if the landlord knows that the animal has the propensity to be dangerous.”
What that leaves:
If the dog that bit you lived in a rental, finding the tenant’s insurance is the place to start.
Three years, running from the date of the bite. Arkansas Code section 16-56-105 gives three years for a negligence action, and Arkansas follows the occurrence rule, as the Court of Appeals explained in Rice v. Ragsdale: absent concealment, the clock starts when the wrong happens, not when it is discovered. File any claim, under either theory, within three years of the bite.
Those are outer limits. The deadlines that shape an Arkansas case are shorter. The ten-day rabies observation creates the best record of the dog and its owner, and neighbors forget what they saw. Because Arkansas cases turn on what the owner knew, the dog’s history is the evidence most worth gathering in the first weeks. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
Arkansas’s reported cases show how far a dog bite can travel beyond the first emergency room visit. In Hamby v. Haskins, a bite to the calf led to two later hospital stays, one to remove gangrenous tissue and one for skin grafting, two months of recovery with the leg elevated, and two three-inch square scars still clearly visible five years later. In Bradley v. Hendricks, a three-year-old’s face was so swollen the next day that his eyes were closed, and the wounds became infected.
Each of these feeds into damages, and in Arkansas none of them is capped.
An Arkansas dog bite victim can recover economic losses (medical bills, future treatment, lost wages, and lost earning ability) and non-economic losses (pain, suffering, mental anguish, scarring, and disfigurement). In Hamby v. Haskins the jury’s award went well beyond the bills and lost wages to cover the pain of the later surgeries and scars still visible five years later, and the Supreme Court affirmed it.
No caps. Article 5, section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution bars the General Assembly from limiting the amount recovered for injuries to persons or property, except between employer and employee. The Civil Justice Reform Act of 2003 said in its own text that it did not limit compensatory damages. It did cap punitive damages at the greater of $250,000 or three times compensatory damages up to $1,000,000, but in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer, decided in 2011, the Arkansas Supreme Court held that cap unconstitutional under article 5, section 32. Neither type of damages is capped in an Arkansas dog bite case.
Punitive damages. The bar is high. Under the 2003 Act the victim must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant knew or ought to have known the conduct would naturally and probably cause injury and continued it with malice or in reckless disregard of the consequences, or intended the harm.
Restitution in a criminal case. If an owner is convicted of unlawful dog attack, the court or jury may order restitution of the victim’s medical bills, in addition to any penalty. For more, see dog bite compensation.
House Bill 1992 in the 2025 session would have created a statewide certificate of registration for dangerous and vicious dogs, but it was withdrawn by its author on April 10, 2025. For dangerous or vicious dog rules, check the ordinances of the city or county where the bite happened.
What the state does have is a criminal statute. Act 258 of 2007 created the offense of unlawful dog attack, Arkansas Code section 5-62-125. An owner commits it when the owner knows or has reason to know the dog has a propensity to attack, cause injury, or endanger others without provocation; negligently allows it to attack someone; and the attack causes death or serious physical injury. It is a Class A misdemeanor.
That tracks the civil rule closely. In the civil cases, the owner’s own admissions that the dog was mean and had bitten him were evidence of knowledge in Strange v. Stovall, and proof that the dog had bitten or injured other people came in at trial in Finley v. Smith.
On breed, Arkansas lets cities act. In Holt v. City of Maumelle (1991) the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a city ordinance banning American Pit Bull Terriers and similar dogs against vagueness and classification challenges, so check the ordinance of the city where the bite happened. In the 2024 Hollingsworth case, the injured kennel worker acknowledged that the dog being a bull mastiff did not by itself make it dangerous.
The Arkansas Department of Health says it is mandatory to report mammalian bites to the department, and its bite reporting page explains how. The state’s Rules Pertaining to Rabies Control, effective November 28, 2024, list persons bitten by dogs, or the parents or guardian of a bitten child, among those responsible for complying, and treat failure to notify health authorities about a bite as non-compliance. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
The dog is then confined and observed for ten days from the date of the bite:
The owner confinement option is recent. Act 522 of 2023, approved April 10, 2023, amended the Rabies Control Act to let the owner of a currently vaccinated dog confine it after providing proof. The dog that bit you may stay with its owner, so get the vaccination record and the observation outcome in writing.
Arkansas requires dogs to be vaccinated against rabies by four months of age. If the dog’s vaccination was not current, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog.
Arkansas was not among the states broken out separately in the latest national insurance data. For 2025, the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm reported a national average of $65,450 per dog-related injury claim across 28,450 claims. That is an average of insurance claims of every size nationwide. It is not an Arkansas number, not a settlement value, and not a prediction for any one case.
What moves the number in an Arkansas case:
Our overview of dog bite settlement amounts explains injury levels, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges.
Look for liability insurance first. The Insurance Information Institute says standard homeowners and renters policies typically cover dog bite liability up to the policy’s limits, usually $100,000 to $300,000. That is a national description, and individual policies vary.
Do not take the owner’s word that there is no coverage; your lawyer can request the declarations page and read the exclusions.
For the full sequence, read our guide on how to file a dog bite claim.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and in Arkansas the work is mostly investigation. Because Arkansas law turns on what the owner knew, the strongest claim depends on proving it, which means finding the earlier complaints, the prior incidents, the neighbor who warned the owner, and the animal control file before they disappear. Where the history is thin, we find the local leash ordinance and get it into the record, because Arkansas courts will not assume it. And because landlords are largely shielded here, we focus early on the policy that actually pays.
We deal with the insurer so that you do not have to, and we push back when an adjuster tries to move your share of fault toward the 50 percent line. We work on a contingency fee, so there is nothing to pay to start and no fee unless we recover money for you. Founding attorney Michael Agruss built the firm around injury clients who need someone else to carry the paperwork.
We take dog bite cases across Arkansas, including Little Rock, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Springdale, Jonesboro, Rogers, Conway, and Bentonville. If you or your child was bitten, contact us for a free consultation. We will tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth bringing and what evidence it needs.
In practice, mostly yes, though the courts dislike the label. Arkansas's rules come from court decisions, and an owner is strictly liable only if the dog had a propensity to injure people that the owner knew or should have known about. A prior bite is not required: in one case, growling at neighbors and nipping at a child's heels was enough to reach a jury. If the dog's history cannot be shown, a victim can still sue for negligence, such as letting the dog run loose against a leash ordinance.
Almost certainly not. Arkansas appellate courts have held that a landlord owes no duty to protect other people from a tenant's dog, and the Court of Appeals of Arkansas applied that rule in 2010 even where the landlord allegedly knew the dog was vicious. The tenant who owns the dog is still responsible, so the claim usually runs against the tenant and any renters insurance the tenant carries.
An adult generally has three years from the date of the bite under Arkansas Code section 16-56-105. A child has until three years after reaching full age. A parent's separate claim for the child's medical bills should be treated as due within three years of the bite. Claims against the state go to the State Claims Commission, and a city or county can be sued only up to its liability insurance.
Arkansas reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault as long as that percentage is less than the fault of the people you are suing. If your fault is found equal to or greater than theirs, you recover nothing. The dog owner has the burden of proving you were at fault, so do not give a recorded statement or accept the adjuster's version of what happened before talking to a lawyer.
No. The Arkansas Constitution forbids the legislature from limiting recovery for injuries to persons outside the employment relationship. In 2011 the Arkansas Supreme Court used that provision to strike down the statutory cap on punitive damages. Medical bills, lost wages, pain, scarring, and mental anguish are all recoverable in full, and punitive damages remain available on clear and convincing proof of malice or reckless disregard.
Yes. The Arkansas Department of Health says reporting bites is mandatory, and its rabies rule lists people who were bitten, or the parents of a bitten child, among those responsible for complying with it and treats failure to notify health authorities as non-compliance. The report starts a ten-day observation of the dog and creates an official record of the dog and its owner. You can report through your local health unit or the department's online form.
Yes, in serious cases. Unlawful dog attack, Arkansas Code section 5-62-125, is a Class A misdemeanor when an owner who knew or had reason to know the dog had a propensity to attack without provocation negligently lets it attack someone, causing death or serious physical injury. A court or jury can also order the owner to pay restitution for the victim's medical bills.
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