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Maryland starts a dog bite case on the victim’s side. Under a 2014 statute, evidence that a dog caused your injury creates a rebuttable presumption that its owner knew or should have known the dog had vicious or dangerous propensities, and if the dog was running at large, the owner is liable without any question of knowledge at all. The catch is that Maryland is one of the last places in the country that still uses contributory negligence, so a small mistake of your own can still decide the case.
This page covers the 2014 statute and the court decision it replaced, what you must prove, loose dogs and local leash rules, who counts as an owner, the defenses, the contributory negligence rule, children, landlords, every filing deadline including the one-year notices for government claims, Maryland’s cap on noneconomic damages, the dangerous dog law, bite reporting and rabies quarantine, and insurance.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Maryland’s dog bite statute is short, and it does two different jobs. Courts and Judicial Proceedings section 3-1901 first says that in a case against a dog’s owner, “evidence that the dog caused the personal injury or death creates a rebuttable presumption that the owner knew or should have known that the dog had vicious or dangerous propensities.” It then makes the owner liable for “any injury, death, or loss to person or property” caused by a dog while it is running at large, with three exceptions.
The first part is a presumption, not automatic liability. The owner can offer evidence that the dog had never shown any sign of danger. What the statute takes away is the early exit: in a jury trial, the judge may not rule the presumption rebutted before the jury returns its verdict. So the owner, not you, has to explain away the dog’s history. That is a long way from the classic one bite rule.
The second part is true strict liability. When a dog was loose and not under anyone’s control, the owner pays for the harm it caused unless you fall within one of the listed exceptions, and the owner’s knowledge does not matter.
The statute exists because of one case. On April 26, 2012, Maryland’s highest court decided Tracey v. Solesky and held that once a plaintiff proved the dog was a pit bull, “it is no longer necessary to prove that the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous,” and that liability reached landlords with the right to keep such dogs off leased property. The General Assembly answered with Chapter 49 of 2014, which the governor approved on April 8, 2014, as an emergency measure effective that day. Its stated intent was to abrogate the holding of Tracey, and it applies only to claims arising after it took effect. The statute’s rules apply to every dog, and for a claim against anyone other than the owner it directs that liability be decided without regard to the breed or heritage of the dog.
The older common law survives alongside the statute. It makes an owner or keeper who knew of a dog’s vicious nature liable without proof of negligence, and it separately allows an ordinary negligence claim for failing to control a dog.
A Maryland claim can be built three ways, and a careful complaint usually pleads more than one.
Ownership can itself be contested. In Latz v. Parr, decided July 6, 2021, the trial court ended the case before the jury could hear it, and the appellate court reversed. The evidence was enough for a jury to decide whether the defendant, the longtime partner of the dog’s owner, was an owner under the presumption, and separately whether he was liable as a harborer, keeper, or possessor of the dog even if he was not.
Paper wins these cases. Animal control reports, the police report, earlier complaints about the dog, and the owner’s own words at the scene all show who had the dog and how it reached you. Request those records early.
Counties set their own leash and running at large rules, such as the Montgomery County and Carroll County ordinances Maryland’s appellate courts have considered, and they vary. Statewide, the running at large clause in section 3-1901(c) turns a loose dog into automatic liability for its owner.
The statute never defines running at large, so the courts have. In Blitzer v. Breski, a reported decision of the Appellate Court of Maryland filed September 27, 2023, two Baltimore City row homes shared a narrow alley and a concrete parking pad. The neighbors let their German Shepherd into the alley unleashed, and it ran out and bit the woman next door on the leg as she got into her car. The court read running at large as “an idiom meaning free, unrestrained, or not under control.” The victim did not have to prove she had exclusive use of the spot where she was bitten. She only had to show the dog was free and not under control and that none of the exceptions applied. The trial judge directed a verdict for her on that claim, and the court affirmed a jury award of $132,322.
Breaking a county leash ordinance helps in a different way. Maryland does not treat a statutory violation as automatic negligence. The state’s highest court said in Absolon v. Dollahite in 2003 that a violation “is evidence of negligence. It does not constitute negligence per se, unless a statute expressly makes it so.” Maryland’s appellate courts have looked to county run at large ordinances, including ones in Montgomery and Carroll counties, as evidence on a negligence claim. So a citation for a loose dog strengthens the case without deciding it.
The 2014 statute uses the word owner and does not define it. The appellate court in Latz v. Parr noted that neither owner nor at large is defined, and it read the history this way: a proposed amendment defining owner to include anyone who keeps or harbors a dog was dropped, possibly because the common law already treated keepers like owners. It also observed that with few exceptions, Maryland county animal control ordinances define owner to include those who harbor, keep, or possess an animal.
Where the line falls depends on control. The court put it this way: merely permitting a dog to remain on one’s property may not be enough to establish ownership, but exercising some degree of care and control of a dog on one’s premises may be sufficient to establish liability. In Latz, a seventy to eighty pound dog chased a woman’s cat into her apartment, and she was hurt restraining the dog. The defendant was not the dog’s legal owner, and the jury still should have decided whether he was answerable for it.
So look past the registered owner to anyone in the household who feeds and controls the dog, a partner or relative who keeps it at their home, whoever had it at the time, and a landlord who knew about it and had power over it. For a closer look at how courts decide this, read what determines ownership of a dog.
The running at large clause lists its own defenses. The owner of a loose dog is not liable if the person hurt was:
Two points about that list. The first exception covers trespass on the owner’s property, so a loose dog that bites someone on a public sidewalk or in a neighbor’s yard is outside it. And provoking is in the list alongside teasing and tormenting, which gives an insurer a word to argue about. Do not accept an adjuster’s description of what you did. Our article on dog bite provocation covers how that argument usually goes.
On the presumption claim and the negligence claim, the statute lists no defenses of its own and keeps every existing defense in place.
Assumption of risk is a separate and complete defense. The state’s highest court described it in Poole v. Coakley & Williams Construction in 2011 as a complete bar to recovery, because it is a previous abandonment of the right to complain if an accident occurs. To decide it against you as a matter of law, a court needs undisputed evidence that you actually knew the risk was present, not merely that you should or could have known.
This is the rule that shapes almost every Maryland dog bite case. Maryland applies contributory negligence, which the General Assembly’s own analysts describe this way: an injured plaintiff’s fault, however slight, is a defense to the negligence claim and bars all recovery. The same analysts note that Maryland keeps this rule along with only three states and the District of Columbia.
The rule survived a direct challenge. In Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia, decided July 9, 2013, a jury found the plaintiff negligent and he was barred from any recovery. The Court of Appeals said it had the authority to change the rule but declined to abrogate Maryland’s long-established common law principle of contributory negligence, pointing to the many bills the General Assembly had considered and not passed. That has not changed: a narrow 2026 comparative fault bill for pedestrians and cyclists hit by vehicles, House Bill 466, was referred to interim study.
The rule has limits that matter:
One question was left open in Blitzer v. Breski: whether contributory negligence defeats the running at large claim, which does not depend on the owner’s negligence. The court said it need not decide the issue because the victim had dropped her negligence count. Expect the owner’s insurer to argue that it applies, and be careful what you say about reaching for the dog, opening a gate, or stepping onto the property.
Children are the clearest exception to Maryland’s harsh fault rule. In Coleman, the Court of Appeals described Taylor v. Armiger as recognizing an exception to contributory negligence where the plaintiff is under five years old. So the owner of a dog that bit a four year old cannot argue that the child should have known better. From five on the defense is available, but Taylor v. Armiger holds a child only to the care that ordinarily prudent children of the same age, experience, and intelligence use, and where the evidence conflicts, a jury decides.
A child’s deadline is longer. Under section 5-201, a minor’s claim must be filed within the lesser of three years or the normal limitation period after the disability is removed, and Maryland’s age of majority is 18. In practice a child’s own claim runs until the twenty-first birthday.
The parents’ side needs faster attention. Maryland’s highest court held in Garay v. Overholtzer in 1993 that an injury to a child creates two separate claims, the child’s own and the parents’ claim for medical expenses, and that the parents must bring theirs within three years. The extended deadline belongs to the minor, so a parent should have a lawyer look at the bills right away. If a family cannot pay for rabies shots, Maryland law has the Department of Health pay for antirabies treatment for a person unable to pay.
If an adjuster says your child provoked the dog, read whether a child can provoke a dog, then talk to a lawyer before answering.
The 2014 statute sends landlord cases back in time. Under section 3-1901(b), a claim against anyone other than the dog’s owner is governed by the common law of liability for dog attacks as it existed on April 1, 2012, without regard to the breed of the dog. That date falls just before Tracey v. Solesky, so the rule that a landlord could be liable just for allowing a pit bull is gone.
What remains is the law of two 1998 decisions, as the court itself later described them in Tracey:
So the practical test for a Maryland landlord has two parts: did the landlord know, or through its staff should it be charged with knowing, that this particular dog was dangerous, and did the landlord have the power to do something about it, such as a lease clause or control of the area where the bite happened. A landlord who never heard a complaint about the dog is usually not liable. A property manager who logged complaints and renewed the lease anyway is a different case, so collect the lease and any written complaints early.
The general rule is three years. Section 5-101 says a civil action must be filed within three years from the date it accrues, and a bite claim accrues on the day of the bite. The government notice deadlines are much shorter.
Local governments under that Act include counties, Baltimore City, municipalities, housing authorities, and the Baltimore City Police Department, so a bite in public housing or by a city police dog can trigger the one-year notice. Local government liability is generally capped at $400,000 per individual claim and $800,000 for all claims from one occurrence, and the state’s is generally capped at $400,000 per claimant for one incident. Higher limits apply when the claim arises from intentional wrongs or constitutional violations by a law enforcement officer. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
Maryland’s dangerous dog statute gives a working definition of a bad bite. Under Criminal Law section 10-619, a severe injury is a physical injury that results in broken bones or disfiguring lacerations requiring multiple sutures or cosmetic surgery. That definition was written for dangerous dog cases, but it also describes the injuries that drive the value of a civil claim.
Maryland’s trauma system is run by the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, which designates specialty referral centers. Its list of specialty referral centers names the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center as the state’s pediatric trauma center, MedStar Union Memorial Hospital as the hand and upper extremity center, and the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute as the eye trauma center.
Maryland splits damages into two kinds. Economic damages, meaning medical bills, future treatment, lost wages, and lost earning capacity, have no cap. Noneconomic damages are defined in section 11-108 to include pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, and loss of consortium, and they are capped.
The cap rises every year. It started at $500,000 for causes of action arising on or after October 1, 1994 and goes up $15,000 each October 1. The amount that applies is the one in force on the date of the bite. According to the General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services, in its 2026 fiscal note on House Bill 476, the cap became $980,000 on October 1, 2026, so that figure applies to bites from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. A bite between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026 falls under the $965,000 cap. In a wrongful death case with two or more beneficiaries, the limit is 150 percent of the cap, or $1,470,000 from October 1, 2026.
How the cap works in practice:
A 2026 bill to repeal the cap, House Bill 476, was referred to interim study and did not pass. Punitive damages are not part of the noneconomic cap, and a county or city cannot be made to pay them under the Tort Claims Act. If your own pet was hurt, section 11-110 lets you recover the reasonable cost of veterinary care, plus the pet’s fair market value if it died, up to $25,000. For more, see dog bite compensation.
Maryland’s dangerous dog statute is Criminal Law section 10-619, and it works in two steps. First, a unit of a county or municipal government may find a dog potentially dangerous if it has bitten a person on public or private property, killed or severely injured a domestic animal off its owner’s property, or attacked without provocation, and the unit must tell the owner in writing why.
Second, a dog becomes dangerous in one of two ways. It is dangerous if, without provocation, it killed or inflicted severe injury on a person. It is also dangerous if, after a potentially dangerous finding, it bites a person, kills or severely injures a domestic animal off its owner’s property, or attacks without provocation. One unprovoked bite that causes severe injury can therefore make a dog dangerous the first time it happens.
The owner of a dangerous dog may not leave it unattended on the owner’s property unless it is confined indoors, in a securely enclosed and locked pen, or in another structure designed to restrain it, and may not let it off the property unless it is leashed and muzzled or otherwise securely restrained and muzzled. Owner’s real property does not include a public right of way or a common area of a condominium, apartment complex, or townhouse development. A violation is a misdemeanor with a fine up to $2,500. The statute does not apply to a dog owned by and working for a government or law enforcement unit.
Counties and cities run the actual proceedings, so the process depends on where you live. For your civil claim, a finding is not a damages award. But a potentially dangerous finding requires written notice to the owner of the reasons, so it is a record of what the owner was told about the dog. Our article on how many times a dog can bite before being put down covers what can happen to the dog.
Maryland puts the duty to report on everyone. Under Health-General section 18-316, an individual who knows that a dog has bitten a person must immediately report it to the local police or sheriff. In Frederick County the report goes to the county animal control center. The police, sheriff, or animal control staff then notify the county health officer and enforce the health officer’s orders. Failing to report is a misdemeanor with a fine up to $500. Read what happens after a dog bite is reported.
After a bite, the local health officer assesses the rabies risk. Where quarantine is appropriate, the Maryland Department of Health’s rabies regulation, COMAR 10.06.02.07, requires the owner to quarantine the dog in a place and manner approved by the local health officer or the state Public Health Veterinarian for at least 10 days after the bite. The owner pays for any veterinary examination, and nobody may move the dog from quarantine without the health officer’s written permission. A person also may not hide a dog the health officer has ordered surrendered.
Every dog four months or older must be vaccinated against rabies under section 18-318, and a county cannot license a dog without proof. The veterinarian must keep the vaccination record for five years, which is how you confirm the dog’s status if the owner will not. If it was never vaccinated, see our article on being bitten by an unvaccinated dog.
Put the risk in context. The Maryland Department of Health rabies page says rabies in Maryland is most frequently found in wildlife, most commonly raccoons, foxes, skunks, and bats, and that cats are the most frequently identified rabid domestic animal. Whether you need rabies shots is a decision for your doctor and the health department.
An average would say little about your own claim, and the national insurance figure is broad: the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm put the average cost of a dog related injury claim in 2025 at $65,450, across 28,450 claims, in their 2025 report. Maryland has no separate line in that report.
The $132,322 award in Blitzer v. Breski, for a leg bite with puncture wounds, survived a challenge that it was excessive, but it is one case, not a benchmark.
What actually moves the number in Maryland:
Our page on dog bite settlement amounts covers how injuries are graded, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges.
A dog owner’s homeowners or renters policy may pay a bite claim. The Maryland Insurance Administration’s consumer guide to homeowners insurance explains that liability coverage requires the insurer to pay, up to the policy limits, for damage the policyholder is legally responsible for, and to provide a lawyer if the policyholder is sued. It adds that liability coverage is not limited to accidents at the home, so a bite in a park or on a sidewalk can still be covered.
Two more points from Maryland law and the regulator:
Maryland’s dangerous dog statute does not itself require the owner of a dangerous dog to carry liability insurance, so do not assume a special policy exists. And do not take the owner’s word that there is no coverage. Ask in writing for the carrier and policy number, and check whether a landlord or a business that had the dog carries its own policy.
For the full process, read how to file a dog bite claim.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and Maryland rewards careful case building. The statute gives you a strong start against an owner, but the contributory negligence rule means one careless phrase in an early phone call can undo it. Our job is to decide which claims to bring, prove the dog was running at large where that fits, identify every owner, keeper, and landlord with power over the dog, and keep the insurer from turning your account of the bite into a defense.
We request the police report, the animal control file, and the quarantine record, look for earlier complaints and any potentially dangerous finding, find every policy that applies, and send the one-year notice when a county, city, or the state may be responsible.
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 people who need someone else to carry the paperwork. We take dog bite cases across Maryland, including Baltimore, Columbia, Germantown, Silver Spring, Frederick, Rockville, and Annapolis. If you or your child was bitten, contact us for a free consultation, and we will tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth bringing.
No, not in the traditional sense. Since April 8, 2014, proving that a dog caused your injury raises a presumption that its owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous, even if it had never bitten anyone, and the judge cannot take that question from the jury before a verdict. If the dog was loose and not under control, the owner is liable regardless of knowledge unless a statutory exception applies.
Possibly not, and that is what makes Maryland unusual. Under contributory negligence, any carelessness of yours that helped cause the injury can bar a negligence claim entirely. The owner has to prove it, a jury usually decides it, and it never applies to a child under five. A 2023 appellate decision left open whether it applies to the loose dog strict liability claim, so talk to a lawyer before describing the incident to an insurer.
The statute does not define it, but in a 2023 reported decision the Appellate Court of Maryland read it to mean free, unrestrained, or not under control. In that case a German Shepherd let out unleashed into an alley shared by two Baltimore row homes bit the next door neighbor, and the owners were held liable even though the victim could not prove the spot was hers alone.
Three years from the date of the bite for an adult. A child generally has until the twenty-first birthday. If a county, city, police department, housing authority, or other local government may be responsible, written notice is due within one year, and a claim against a state agency needs a written claim to the Treasurer within one year. A wrongful death action must be filed within three years of the death.
Sometimes. Maryland judges landlords by the common law as it stood on April 1, 2012. A landlord can be liable where it knew, often through its own staff, that the particular dog was dangerous and had the power to act, such as a no pets clause or control of the parking lot or hallway where the attack happened. A landlord with no knowledge of the dog is usually not liable.
Medical bills, lost wages, and other economic losses have no cap. Pain, suffering, disfigurement, and other noneconomic damages are capped at the amount in force on the date of the bite: $980,000 for bites on or after October 1, 2026, and $965,000 for the twelve months before that. Claims against local governments are separately limited, generally to $400,000 per claim.
The bite must be reported to the police or sheriff, who notify the health officer. Where quarantine is appropriate, the dog is confined for at least 10 days in a place the health officer approves, at the owner's cost. Separately, the county or city can find the dog potentially dangerous, and a dog that kills or severely injures a person without provocation is legally dangerous and must be locked up or leashed and muzzled.
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