Disponible las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana
Disponible las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana
Tennessee’s dog bite rule depends on where the bite happened. Under Tennessee Code section 44-8-413, a dog owner who fails to keep the dog under reasonable control is liable when the dog injures someone in a public place or lawfully on another person’s property, whether or not the dog was ever dangerous before. But when the bite happens on residential, farm, or other noncommercial property that the owner owns, rents, or is on with the property owner’s permission, the victim must prove the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous. That is the old one bite rule, written into the statute.
This page covers both rules and how courts read them, the statewide running at large law, who counts as an owner, the statute’s five exceptions, comparative fault, a child’s case, landlord liability, Tennessee’s short one year deadline and the rules for government defendants, the damages caps, dangerous dogs, rabies and reporting, insurance, and what to do first. Tennessee courts decided several important dog bite cases in 2025, so older articles about this state may be out of date.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Tennessee has a dog bite statute, and it splits cases in two. The General Assembly passed it in 2007 as the Dianna Acklen Act, and it took effect July 1, 2007. You can read the 2007 public chapter on the legislature’s site. It is now Tennessee Code section 44-8-413.
The first half is the victim friendly part. Subsection (a) says the owner of a dog “has a duty to keep that dog under reasonable control at all times, and to keep that dog from running at large,” and an owner who breaches that duty is liable to a person injured by the dog “while in a public place or lawfully in or on the private property of another.” It adds that the owner may be held liable regardless of whether the dog has shown any dangerous propensities or whether the owner knew or should have known of them. The Tennessee Court of Appeals describes an owner in that situation as strictly liable. In plain terms: if a loose dog bites you on the sidewalk, in a park, or in a store, you do not need to prove it had bitten anyone before.
The second half is where many Tennessee cases are won or lost. Subsection (c)(1) says that if a dog injures a person on residential, farm, or other noncommercial property, and the dog’s owner owns that property, is on it with the property owner’s permission, or is a lawful tenant there, the injured person must establish that the dog’s owner knew or should have known of the dog’s dangerous propensities. The Court of Appeals has said this part of the statute retains and codifies the common law requirement. That is Tennessee’s version of the one bite rule, and it covers the most common bite of all: a guest, a neighbor’s child, or a delivery driver bitten at the dog owner’s house.
So the first question in every Tennessee case is the address. Off the owner’s residential property, the case turns on control. On it, the case turns on what the owner knew.
Under subsection (a), for a bite in public or on someone else’s property, you prove four things: the defendant was the dog’s owner as the statute defines that word, the owner failed to keep the dog under reasonable control or let it run at large, you were in a public place or lawfully on another person’s property, and the dog caused your injury and losses. Prior bites and the owner’s knowledge are beside the point.
Under subsection (c), for a bite at the owner’s home or farm, you prove all of that plus knowledge. The statute says that extra element sits on top of whatever Tennessee premises liability and comparative fault law already require. Defendants often attack this element with the owner’s own sworn statement that the dog was never dangerous, as the owners did in both 2025 cases below.
Knowledge does not require a previous bite. In September 2025, in Munoz v. Sepulveda, the Court of Appeals reversed a ruling for a dog owner whose Great Pyrenees bit a woman who had come to buy a lamb. The evidence was a beware of dog sign, testimony that the dog was protective of the owner’s other animals, a visitor who said it had growled and shown its teeth at her, and the owner’s later statement that the dog did not know how to be with other people. Quoting the Tennessee Supreme Court, the court said a dog is not entitled to one bite: it is enough that the owner knows the dog has on other occasions shown a tendency to attack people or other animals that should warn the owner of its dangerous character.
Two weeks later the same court showed the other side. In A.M. v. Masek, a child staying overnight with a family was attacked by their rescue dog in the backyard of their rented Shelby County home. The court affirmed judgment for the owners because the child’s family had admitted the owners’ statement that they had never known the dog to growl, snap, or show ill temper. An unexplained dead cat, eight months of ownership, a fenced yard, and the owner’s habit of supervising the child were not evidence of knowledge. The court said plainly that the legislature meant to put this burden on victims hurt on residential property, and that it is not the court’s place to ease it.
The lesson is practical. In a subsection (c) case, the evidence that mattered in Munoz was about the dog’s behavior before the bite: a warning sign, a visitor the dog had growled at, its protectiveness, and what the owner said. Gather that kind of evidence early.
Tennessee has a statewide law against dogs running at large, and it is a crime. Section 44-8-408 makes it an offense when an owner’s dog goes uncontrolled on another person’s premises without consent, or goes uncontrolled on a highway, road, street, or any other place open to the public. The penalty climbs with the harm. As the Court of Criminal Appeals explained in State v. Corlew in 2024, the offense is a Class E felony when the loose dog causes serious bodily injury, and a Class D felony if the owner also knew the dog was dangerous and it had already bitten someone causing serious bodily injury or death.
The civil statute uses the same idea. Section 44-8-413 defines running at large in nearly the same words, and it puts every owner under a duty to keep the dog from running at large. So in Tennessee a dog running at large is not just evidence of carelessness. When a loose dog bites someone away from the owner’s property, the dog being at large is itself the breach that makes the owner liable.
Since July 1, 2023 there is another consequence. Public Chapter 226 added a rule that when an owner is convicted because a dog running at large injured or killed someone, the court shall order full restitution for all damages arising out of the offense, including incidental and consequential damages. The same law says this does not prevent the injured person from pursuing a civil claim under section 44-8-413.
One caution. A citation under a city ordinance is not the same as a charge under this state law. The Court of Appeals treats city ordinance violations as civil matters, which matters for the filing deadline discussed below. Ask your lawyer what any citation adds to your case.
Section 44-8-413 has its own definition of owner, and it is broader than the person whose name is on the adoption papers. An owner is a person who, at the time of the injury, regularly harbors, keeps, or exercises control over the dog. It does not include someone who is only temporarily harboring, keeping, or controlling it. Since a 2016 amendment, Public Chapter 662, owning the land alone does not make a landowner a regular harborer, even if the landowner gave someone permission to keep the dog there.
The Court of Appeals applied that definition in May 2025 in Hudson v. Gravette. A kennel technician was attacked by two bulldogs boarded at the business where she worked. The kennel had kept the dogs 134 of 287 days, feeding, training, and transporting them. The court held that regularly does not mean permanently, that the kennel was the statutory owner, and that what counts is who was in a position to control the dog at the time of the injury. The dogs’ legal owners, who were physically separated from the dogs at the time, were not liable under the statute.
The same case contains good news for victims. The court held that losing the statutory claim did not end the technician’s common law negligence claim against the legal owners if they knew their dogs were vicious. Earlier, in Folad v. Quillco, the court said a business is not a regular harborer merely because a dog is on its premises; it depends on whether the dog is there for the business’s benefit. Evidence that a store marketed two dogs as its resident shop dogs was enough to reverse a ruling for the store.
Several people can fit at once: the registered owner, a household member who feeds and walks the dog, a business that keeps it. If you are unsure who had the dog, read what determines ownership of a dog. And if you were the one caring for the dog, as a pet sitter, walker, or groomer, tell a lawyer that on the first call, because it can change which claims you have.
Subsection (b) of section 44-8-413 lists five situations in which the strict liability rule in subsection (a) does not apply:
Read the trespass exception closely. It covers trespass on nonresidential property, such as a closed business or a fenced commercial lot. A trespasser bitten at a home is not covered by that exception, but that person would already face subsection (c), which demands proof of the owner’s knowledge.
The provocation exception is worded broadly. Enticing, disturbing, and alarming are not the same as hitting or teasing, and an insurer will use those words. Background on how insurers use this argument is in our article on dog bite provocation.
Assumption of risk is no longer a separate defense in most cases. In Perez v. McConkey in 1994, the Tennessee Supreme Court abolished implied assumption of risk and folded it into comparative fault. A signed waiver, which the court called express assumption of risk, was left untouched, so a groomer, kennel worker, or volunteer should find out whether they signed one.
Tennessee uses modified comparative fault, adopted by the Tennessee Supreme Court in McIntyre v. Balentine in 1992. The rule is that “so long as a plaintiff’s negligence remains less than the defendant’s negligence the plaintiff may recover,” with the award reduced by the plaintiff’s share. Where there are several defendants, the comparison is to their combined fault.
The arithmetic is strict. The jury question the court approved asks whether the plaintiff’s own negligence accounted for 50 percent or more of the total. At 49 percent you recover 51 percent of your damages. At 50 percent you recover nothing. The 2011 Civil Justice Act writes the same line into the damages statute: recovery is barred when the plaintiff’s fault is equal to or greater than 50 percent.
McIntyre also ended joint and several liability for most cases, so each defendant generally pays only its own share. That is why defendants in dog bite cases often point at someone else: a landlord, a kennel, a parent who was supposed to be watching. When a defendant blames a person who is not in the lawsuit, Tennessee Code section 20-1-119 gives the victim a short window, 90 days, to add that person as a defendant, as long as the original suit was filed on time, as the Tennessee Supreme Court explained in Moreno v. City of Clarksville. Miss it and that share of fault may go uncollected.
Tennessee law treats a bitten child differently from an adult in three ways.
First, the deadline. Tennessee Code section 28-1-106 delays the clock for a person under 18 until the disability is removed, so a child’s one year period does not start until the eighteenth birthday. That generally means suit must be filed before age 19, as the Court of Appeals confirmed in Tate v. Shelby County Board of Education in 2022. A claim for a child’s medical bills belongs to the parents, not the child, and is a separate claim, so it should not be assumed to share that longer clock. Treat it as a one year claim and talk to a lawyer well before the first anniversary of the bite.
Second, fault. Tennessee courts have used the common law Rule of Sevens, which the Tennessee Supreme Court described in Cardwell v. Bechtol in 1987: under age seven, no capacity; from seven to fourteen, a rebuttable presumption of no capacity; over fourteen, a rebuttable presumption of capacity. The court said the rule has been applied in tort cases, and that a minor’s capacity for negligence is judged by age, ability, intelligence, training, experience, and the danger involved.
Third, the facts that matter most. A child bitten at a relative’s or friend’s house where the dog lives falls under subsection (c) and the knowledge requirement. A.M. v. Masek, the 2025 Shelby County backyard case, is a reminder that a sympathetic injury does not replace evidence about the dog’s past. If an adjuster says your child provoked the dog, read whether a child can provoke a dog, then get advice before answering.
A landlord is not liable just for letting a tenant keep a dog. The statute says so in the owner definition added in 2016: land ownership alone does not make a landowner a regular harborer, even when the landowner gave permission for the dog. So a landlord is usually not a defendant under section 44-8-413 unless the landlord actually harbored, kept, or controlled the dog on a regular basis.
Negligence is a separate route. In Harrill v. PI Tennessee in 2022, the Court of Appeals restated the rule from earlier cases: landlords typically are not liable for injuries caused by their tenants’ animals, but if a landlord becomes aware that a tenant is harboring an animal with vicious propensities and has control of the premises or the ability to remove or confine the animal, the landlord owes a duty to protect others. The court explained that a landlord meets that duty by ordering the tenant to remove the animal or by ending the lease and starting eviction.
Harrill shows how narrow this is. A mobile home park learned that a tenant’s son’s pit bull had bitten someone, ordered the dog removed, and served an eviction notice. The dog was taken away, and later came back and bit the plaintiff. The landlord won because it acted as soon as it knew, and the court held those steps met its duty even though the tenant later let the dog back in. In an earlier case the court relied on, Dionne v. Brown, the Court of Appeals reversed a directed verdict for apartment managers who knew the dog had bitten a maintenance worker and did nothing.
So a landlord case in Tennessee turns on two questions: what the landlord knew, and what the lease let the landlord do about it. Complaints from other tenants, emails to the property manager, and pet clauses in the lease are the key documents.
Tennessee’s injury deadline is short. Section 44-8-413(d) borrows the personal injury period in section 28-3-104, which requires the lawsuit to be filed within one year after the claim accrues, which for a dog bite is ordinarily the day of the bite.
Claims against the State of Tennessee itself go through a different process with its own rules. Whatever the defendant, one year passes quickly while you are still in treatment. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
Tennessee’s damages statute sorts the harm from a dog attack into two kinds of loss, and both matter when you document your injuries:
Rabies is rare in Tennessee dogs. The state health department reports that from 2019 to 2023 rabies was found in 8 domestic animals statewide, 7 dogs and 1 cat, and that the last human rabies case in Tennessee was in 2002 from a bat. When the biting dog can be watched for 10 days, the department does not recommend post-exposure shots. When the dog cannot be found, the decision belongs to your doctor and the health department, and the cost becomes part of the claim.
A Tennessee dog bite claim can recover economic damages, meaning medical and therapy bills, future treatment such as scar revision, lost wages and lost earning capacity, and out of pocket costs, with no cap. It can also recover noneconomic damages for pain, suffering, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life, and those are capped.
The cap is in Tennessee Code section 29-39-102, part of the Tennessee Civil Justice Act of 2011. For claims arising on or after October 1, 2011, noneconomic damages for each injured person are limited to $750,000. The limit rises to $1,000,000 for certain catastrophic injuries the statute lists, and it does not apply at all in a few situations, including where the defendant had a specific intent to inflict serious physical injury, was intoxicated, or committed a felony in causing the injury. The jury is not told about the cap; the judge applies it afterward. The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the cap in McClay v. Airport Management Services in 2020.
Punitive damages are possible against a defendant whose conduct was intentional, fraudulent, malicious, or reckless, proved by clear and convincing evidence. Section 29-39-104 limits punitive damages to the greater of twice the compensatory damages or $500,000. A federal appeals court held that punitive cap unconstitutional in 2018, and in McClay in 2020 the Tennessee Supreme Court said it expressed no opinion on the question, so expect a fight if punitive damages are in play.
Claims against a local government are different. The Governmental Tort Liability Act caps recovery for one person’s bodily injury at $300,000, as the Court of Appeals applied it in Clay v. City of Memphis in 2024. For more on what goes into a claim, see dog bite compensation.
Tennessee Code section 44-17-120 sets out a court process for a dog that attacks a person and causes death or serious injury. As the Tennessee Supreme Court described it in State v. Hartley, the district attorney petitions the court, the owner gets notice and five days to appear and show cause why the dog should not be destroyed, and the judge decides on the evidence.
Ask your city or county animal control office whether any local rules about dangerous dogs apply where the bite happened.
The criminal running at large law adds teeth. If an owner knew the dog was dangerous and it had already bitten someone causing serious bodily injury or death, a later violation that causes serious bodily injury rises from a Class E to a Class D felony.
Lawmakers looked at a statewide system in 2026. Senate Bill 1794 and House Bill 1902 would have created a public dangerous dog registry and required owners of dangerous dogs to register them, restrain them, and carry liability insurance. The bill record shows the House version sent to summer study and the Senate version sent back to committee in March 2026, with no later action and no public chapter number.
Why any of this matters to your claim: in a subsection (c) case, it is enough that the owner knew the dog had attacked or tried to attack people or other animals before, so records of an earlier incident can be strong evidence. Ask animal control for the dog’s file. If you wonder what happens to the dog itself, see how many times a dog can bite before being put down.
The Tennessee Department of Health tells people to report dog bites to the local health department and the local animal control office. Its rabies page asks you to have ready a description of the dog, how the bite happened, and, if it is a pet, who owns it and where it lives. Bites also reach the health department from hospitals and clinics, animal control officers, and owners. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
Once a bite is reported, the department’s guidance calls for an environmental health specialist to contact both the person bitten and the owner within one business day. The owner is told about the rabies control law requiring confinement. The dog should be confined and observed for 10 days from the time of the bite, whether or not it is vaccinated. The Tennessee Rabies Manual says that can happen at home, at an animal control facility, or at a veterinary clinic, depending on local rules, and that the dog should not be vaccinated during the observation period.
The 10 days have a medical reason. Dogs shed rabies virus in saliva for only a few days before they show signs of illness, so in the department’s words, if a dog remains healthy for 10 days after a bite, it could not have transmitted rabies at the time of the bite. If the dog gets sick, a veterinarian should examine it.
Tennessee law requires dogs and cats over six months old to be currently vaccinated against rabies. If the dog that bit you was not, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog. The report itself also helps your claim: it is a dated official record of the bite, the dog, and the owner.
Any average says little about a single claim. The closest thing to an average is insurance claim data. The most recent Tennessee-specific numbers come from the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which reported in 2018, citing the Insurance Information Institute, that 314 dog bite claims were filed in Tennessee in 2017 worth $11 million, an average of $35,029 per claim. Those figures are now several years old.
Nationally, the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm report that the average dog-related injury claim in 2025 was $65,450. That is an average across every homeowners claim, large and small. It is not a settlement value for any one case.
What actually moves the number in a Tennessee case:
Our page on dog bite settlement amounts explains how cases are valued, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough range.
Tennessee’s insurance regulator treats dog bites as an insurance question. In a 2018 consumer release, the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance urged dog owners to review their policies with their agents or insurers to make sure they have appropriate coverage for a dog bite.
The same release warned that coverage is not guaranteed: some carriers may not offer coverage, or may charge more, for breeds considered more dangerous.
What that means for you as a victim:
For the full sequence, read our guide on how to file a dog bite claim.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and Tennessee is a state where early decisions shape the whole case. The first job is deciding which half of section 44-8-413 applies. If the bite happened off the owner’s property, we build the record that the dog was loose or out of control. If it happened at the owner’s home or farm, we start looking for proof of knowledge right away: animal control complaints, neighbors, prior incidents, warning signs, and what the owner has said, because that evidence fades fast.
We also identify every possible defendant under Tennessee’s broad owner definition, including a business or kennel that regularly kept the dog and a landlord who knew and did nothing; watch the 90 day window to add anyone a defendant blames; and file inside the one year limit. We deal with the insurer so that a friendly phone call does not turn into a fault percentage assigned to you.
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 injury clients who need someone else to carry the paperwork.
We take dog bite cases across Tennessee, including Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Clarksville, and Murfreesboro. 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.
Partly. For a bite on residential, farm, or other noncommercial property that the dog's owner owns, rents, or is on with the property owner's permission, section 44-8-413(c) requires proof that the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous. Elsewhere, such as a sidewalk, park, or store, the owner who fails to control the dog is liable without any proof of earlier aggression.
Possibly. Tennessee courts do not require a prior bite. In a 2025 case the Court of Appeals reversed a ruling for the owner and sent the case back to the trial court based on a beware of dog sign, the dog growling and baring its teeth at an earlier visitor, its protectiveness, and the owner's own comments. What you need is evidence of earlier behavior that should have warned the owner, so start collecting it from neighbors, animal control, and witnesses now.
Usually one year from the day of the bite, under section 28-3-104. It can be two years if the dog owner is criminally prosecuted under state law over the attack within that first year and you sue that owner, though a city citation does not count. A child generally has until one year after turning 18. Claims against a city or county also have a twelve month limit. Because these rules have traps, speak with a lawyer within the first few months.
Only in limited cases. Owning the property and allowing the dog does not make a landlord liable under the dog bite statute. A landlord can be liable for negligence if the landlord knew the tenant's dog was vicious and had the power to remove it or end the lease, but did nothing. Prior complaints to the landlord and the lease's pet terms are the evidence to look for.
You can still recover if your share of fault is under 50 percent, and your award is reduced by that share. At 50 percent or more you recover nothing. Separately, the statute removes strict liability if you enticed, disturbed, alarmed, harassed, or provoked the dog. Insurers use both arguments, so be careful what you say to an adjuster.
Yes. Medical bills and lost income are not capped, but pain, suffering, and disfigurement are limited to $750,000 per injured person in most cases, and $1,000,000 for certain catastrophic injuries listed in the statute. Punitive damages, for reckless or malicious conduct, are limited to the greater of twice the compensatory award or $500,000. The jury is not told about the caps.
Call the local health department and the local animal control office. The health department's staff contact you and the owner, and the dog is confined and watched for 10 days, at home, at animal control, or at a vet depending on local rules. A dog that stays healthy for those 10 days could not have passed rabies to you. The report also gives you an official record of the bite.
«*» indica los campos obligatorios
«*» indica los campos obligatorios
Ponte en contacto con nosotros por teléfono, correo electrónico, mensaje de texto o chat para hablar de tu caso.