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New Mexico has no dog bite statute, so the rule comes from the common law: a dog’s owner is liable for the harm the dog causes if the owner knew, or should have known, that the dog was vicious or had a tendency or natural inclination to be vicious. That is the standard New Mexico juries are given in UJI 13-506. Since 1999 a victim can also bring an ordinary negligence claim against an owner who failed to control a dog in a situation where someone could foreseeably get hurt, even without proof the owner knew the dog was dangerous.
This page covers both routes, leash rules, owners, defenses, pure comparative fault, children, landlords, the three year deadline and the 90 day government notice, damages, the Dangerous Dog Act, rabies, settlement value, and insurance. One recent change: the New Mexico Supreme Court restyled the dog owner instruction for cases pending or filed on or after December 31, 2025, without changing the rule.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
New Mexico never passed a law making dog owners automatically responsible for bites. The New Mexico Supreme Court said so in 1953 in Perkins v. Drury: “We have no statute in New Mexico, as do some states, making the owner of a dog an insurer against damages inflicted by it.” The common law fills the gap, and the jury instruction that states it, UJI 13-506, reads: “An owner of a dog is liable for damages proximately caused by the dog if the owner knew, or should have known, that the dog was vicious or had a tendency or natural inclination to be vicious.”
This is the version of the one bite rule New Mexico uses, but it is not a free pass for a first bite. Perkins called the old idea that every dog gets one bite “out of harmony with a modern humanitarian society,” and said an owner cannot wait to restrain a dog until it has “effectually killed or mangled at least one person.” Once knowledge is proven, the owner is liable even if he was careful. The court of appeals put it this way in 1999: the instruction “imposes strict liability once knowledge is proven.”
The second route came from that same 1999 decision. In Smith v. Village of Ruidoso, a police dog ran out of an officer’s home and bit a schoolgirl. The court held that a negligence claim is appropriate where the dog owner lacks knowledge of the dog’s vicious propensities and ineffectively controls the animal in a situation where injury could reasonably be expected. It overruled an earlier case to the extent it had barred negligence claims in dog cases. So a victim can plead both.
The knowledge claim, read from the words of UJI 13-506, asks four questions. Did the defendant own the dog? Was it vicious, or inclined to be? Did the owner know, or should the owner have known? Did the dog cause your injury? Then you prove what the injury cost.
Knowledge is usually the fight, and New Mexico law gives you several ways to show it. Perkins held that an owner’s knowledge “may be inferred from circumstances, positive proof of such knowledge not being required,” and that a fact finder may infer a dog’s vicious nature from one act, especially an attack on a person. In Torres v. Rosenbaum the Supreme Court said a dog’s character may be shown by its general reputation in the community and by specific things it has done. And in Mallard v. Zink the court of appeals held that where a vicious dog is kept at a married couple’s home, one spouse’s knowledge is notice to the other.
One limit to know about. The committee commentary to UJI 13-506 says the dog’s vicious propensity must have been previously shown toward a human being, and that aggression toward other animals is not enough. Perkins itself allowed an inference from an owner’s warnings to keep children away from two dogs that fought each other, and the court of appeals in Smith v. Village of Ruidoso described Perkins as holding that knowledge of a dog’s vicious propensity “in its relationship with another dog” was enough. The commentary and that reading of Perkins point in different directions.
The negligence claim asks different questions: did the owner fail to use ordinary care to control the dog, in circumstances where a reasonable person would foresee that someone could be hurt, and did that failure cause the bite? It does not require proof of a vicious history, which is why it matters for a first bite.
NMSA 77-1-12 requires every municipality and every county to provide by ordinance for the seizure and disposition of dogs running at large. That puts the everyday at-large and leash rules in local ordinances, and they vary from city to city and county to county.
Albuquerque’s rules are in its animal ordinance, called HEART (Humane and Ethical Animal Rules and Treatment). The city’s own summary says pet owners are responsible for making sure their animals do not run at large and stay under the control of a responsible person when off their property, as explained on the city’s leash law page.
There are also two statewide rules aimed at dangerous animals. Section 77-1-10(A) makes it unlawful to keep any animal known to be vicious and liable to attack or injure people unless it is securely kept, and a violation is a misdemeanor. The state health rules in 7.4.2 NMAC make it unlawful for an owner to fail to confine a vicious animal, with limited exceptions that include a vicious dog that is muzzled and on a leash strong enough to control it, held by a person able to control it.
Why this matters for your claim: New Mexico’s jury instructions, UJI 13-1501 and 13-1502, treat the violation of a statute or city ordinance as negligence as a matter of law unless the violation was excused or justified. That is negligence per se. The instructions apply only to a law enacted for the protection of a class of the public that includes the injured person, so it matters whether the leash or at-large rule involved was written to protect people in your position.
UJI 13-506 is written in terms of “an owner of a dog.” The owner is usually obvious: the person the dog belongs to. In a household, more than one person may share that role, and Mallard v. Zink shows how a couple who keep a dog together can both be charged with what either of them knew.
The negligence route reaches further. Smith relied on section 518 of the Restatement of Torts, which speaks of anyone who “possesses or harbors” a domestic animal, and directed that an instruction consistent with it be given at the new trial. In Torres v. Rosenbaum an employer who sent her housemaid onto a neighbor’s property was sued over the neighbor’s dog, and the Supreme Court said the claim turned on whether the employer knew of the dog’s vicious propensities. Someone who never owned the dog can be negligent for putting you in its path.
The Dangerous Dog Act defines an owner broadly, as anyone who possesses, harbors, keeps, or has control or custody of a dog, and makes a parent or guardian the owner when the person with the dog is under 18. That definition governs the Act, not your civil claim, but it shows who New Mexico treats as responsible. If you are unsure who had the dog, read what determines ownership of a dog.
If you were caring for the dog yourself, walking it, sitting it, or living with it, say so on the first call with a lawyer, because your role affects how the claim is built.
The knowledge claim carries its own defense, written into the bracketed part of UJI 13-506. The owner of such a dog is not liable if the injured person “had knowledge of the propensities of the dog and wantonly excited it or voluntarily and unnecessarily got in the way of the dog.” Both halves require that you already knew what the dog was like. A stranger who reached for a dog without knowing its history does not fit that language, and neither does a jogger who simply ran past. Our guide to dog bite provocation covers how insurers use the word.
Assumption of risk is gone as a separate defense. In Williamson v. Smith, decided in 1971, the New Mexico Supreme Court held that assumption of risk should no longer be recognized as an affirmative defense, and said the ground it covered would be handled as the plaintiff’s own negligence. Under pure comparative fault, that kind of argument reduces an award rather than ending it. The court of appeals has noted, in Diaz v. McMahon, that Williamson did not abolish assumption of risk in its primary sense, which goes to whether a duty was owed at all.
Trespass is not a statutory defense here, because there is no dog bite statute to contain one. Where you were still matters. New Mexico’s premises instructions say a property owner owes a visitor ordinary care to keep the premises safe, while the duty to a trespasser is narrower and arises only in limited situations, such as when the owner knows or should know the trespasser is there.
Do not confuse these with Dangerous Dog Act section 77-1A-3, which bars declaring a dog dangerous if the person was trespassing, provoking or abusing it, or committing a crime. Those exceptions decide whether animal control can designate the dog, not whether you can recover money.
New Mexico uses pure comparative fault, the most forgiving version there is. In Scott v. Rizzo, decided February 12, 1981, the New Mexico Supreme Court held that a pure comparative negligence standard supersedes prior law and that a plaintiff suing in negligence is no longer totally barred because of his own negligence. The court rejected the 50 percent cutoff.
Here is how the numbers work. If a jury values your injuries at $100,000 and finds you 20 percent at fault, you recover $80,000. At 70 percent, you still recover $30,000. There is no point at which your own share wipes out the claim.
New Mexico also splits payment by share. Under NMSA 41-3A-1, each defendant generally pays only the portion of the damages that matches its own percentage of fault, measured against everyone involved, including you and people who were never sued. If the dog’s owner is 60 percent at fault and a landlord is 20 percent, each pays its own share. Joint liability survives for intentional wrongdoers, for someone vicariously liable for another, and in a few other situations.
One open question. Comparative fault plainly applies to the negligence claim. Whether it reduces a recovery on the knowledge claim under UJI 13-506 is less clear. A 1979 decision said negligence and contributory negligence instructions should not be given alongside the dog instruction, but that was decided before New Mexico adopted comparative fault, and Smith later declined to follow it partly for that reason. The official annotations to UJI 13-506 list no later appellate decision on the point. Expect the owner to argue your share of fault either way, and do not describe what happened to the insurer before talking to a lawyer.
New Mexico law gives a bitten child real protection. Start with fault. New Mexico’s jury instruction UJI 13-1606 says plainly that a child under the age of seven is incapable of negligence. A toddler who hugged a dog or ran toward it has no share of fault to subtract. A child seven or older is judged against a reasonably careful child of the same age, mental capacity, and experience, not against an adult, and the court of appeals has said those questions usually cannot be decided without a trial. If an adjuster is blaming your child, read whether a child can provoke a dog.
A child also has more time. Under NMSA 37-1-10, a minor has one year after turning 18 to sue. The court of appeals read that together with the three year limit in Gomez v. Chavarria: a child’s claim is not barred until one year after reaching majority or three years after the bite, whichever gives the child more time. In practice that usually means the nineteenth birthday.
The parent’s claim is separate. New Mexico’s damages instructions treat medical bills and other expenses paid for a minor as the parent’s claim, while pain and suffering and earning capacity lost after age 18 belong to the child. Whether the child’s longer clock also covers the parent’s claim is not clear for a dog case. The Supreme Court has called the extension a personal privilege of the person under the disability, while a 2022 court of appeals decision let a parent’s loss of consortium claim run with the child’s in a medical malpractice case. The safe course is to treat three years from the bite as the parent’s deadline.
Perkins v. Drury itself involved a girl under two left with disfiguring scars on her cheek. A settlement offered before anyone knows whether scar revision will be needed deserves a hard look.
A landlord is not liable just because a tenant owns a dog. Under New Mexico’s common law, as the Supreme Court put it in Lommori v. Milner Hotels in 1957, the tenant in possession is generally responsible for what happens on the rented property, and a landlord’s liability is limited to recognized exceptions, such as areas the landlord keeps control of. For a dog, the landlord’s knowledge matters too. In an unpublished 2013 decision, Ortiz v. Johnson, the court of appeals affirmed judgment for owners of a rental house whose tenant’s pit bull attacked a woman walking on the sidewalk, noting that the standard for a landlord is not lower than for the dog’s actual owner. Unpublished decisions are not precedent, but it shows how one panel applied the rule.
Common areas are different, and the leading published case is a dog bite case. In Castillo v. County of Santa Fe, decided in 1988, a three-year-old was severely bitten by a dog roaming loose on the grounds of a county-owned housing project. The New Mexico Supreme Court held that loose-running dogs could be an unsafe condition on the land, and that a landlord must keep areas reserved for tenants’ common use safe. Whether the landlord met that duty depended on what it knew or should have known about loose dogs in the common area, whether they were a foreseeable threat, and what means it had to control them.
Castillo involved a public landlord, but the common area duty it described is the ordinary landlord duty. So the questions are practical. Had tenants complained? Did the landlord know of earlier incidents? Did the bite happen in a parking lot, courtyard, or hallway the landlord controlled? A landlord who knew and did nothing is a real defendant with separate insurance.
Three years from the date of the bite. NMSA 37-1-8 gives three years for an injury to the person, and the official annotations note that a personal injury claim in strict liability falls under the same three year limit, so it covers both the knowledge claim and the negligence claim. The government deadlines are much shorter.
Government claims have another limit. The Tort Claims Act does not allow strict liability claims against public bodies, so the knowledge claim is not available against them. Smith held that a bite victim may pursue a negligence claim against a municipality when the facts fit the Act’s waiver for negligent operation or maintenance of a building, public park, machinery, equipment, or furnishings. Our overview of the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
New Mexico’s Dangerous Dog Act defines a serious injury as one that “results in broken bones, multiple bites or disfiguring lacerations requiring sutures or reconstructive surgery.” That line decides whether a dog can be declared dangerous. A lesser injury is still compensable.
The Act’s label does not set the value of your claim. The jury values the nature, extent, and duration of the injury itself.
New Mexico’s damages instructions list what a jury may award. Economic losses include the reasonable expense of necessary medical care, including prosthetic devices and cosmetic aids and future treatment that is reasonably certain; lost earnings and lost future earning capacity; and necessary nonmedical expenses such as in-home care. Noneconomic losses include the nature, extent, and duration of the injury, including disfigurement, and pain and suffering, past and future. On pain and suffering the instruction tells jurors that no fixed standard exists and that they must use their judgment.
Government caps. When the defendant is a public body, the Tort Claims Act limits the award. Under NMSA 41-4-19, a city, county, school district, or state agency pays no more than $300,000 for all past and future medical expenses from one occurrence, and no more than $400,000 to any person for other damages such as pain, scarring, and lost wages. Those other damages, together with any real property damage, are limited to $750,000 in total for all claims from one occurrence. A government defendant also pays no punitive damages and no interest before judgment.
Punitive damages. Under New Mexico’s punitive damages instruction, UJI 13-1827, a jury may award punitive damages if the conduct was malicious, willful, reckless, wanton, fraudulent, or in bad faith. Reckless conduct is the intentional doing of an act with utter indifference to the consequences.
You must take reasonable care to limit your damages, which includes prompt treatment and following medical advice. For more, see dog bite compensation.
The Dangerous Dog Act, NMSA 77-1A-1 through 77-1A-6, has been in force since June 17, 2005, and the 2026 compilation shows no amendments since. A dangerous dog is one that caused a serious injury to a person or domestic animal. A potentially dangerous dog caused a lesser injury, chased or menaced someone aggressively without provocation, or acted highly aggressive in a fenced yard while appearing able to jump out.
The process runs through the courts. With probable cause, animal control may get a warrant to seize the dog, then must petition within 14 days unless the owner admits the dog is dangerous. If the court finds the facts by clear and convincing evidence, the owner has 30 days to register the dog or it is humanely destroyed. Registration means spaying or neutering, a microchip, a proper enclosure (chaining does not count), and a behavior program. A dangerous dog must also stay on the owner’s property except for veterinary care, be caged or muzzled on a lead no longer than four feet when off it, and have a warning sign posted.
The criminal side is serious. If a dangerous or potentially dangerous dog causes serious injury to a person without provocation, its owner is guilty of a third degree felony, but prosecution requires proof that the owner knew of the dog’s propensity to inflict serious injury or that a court had already declared the dog dangerous or potentially dangerous.
The Act contains no civil liability provision, so a declaration does not create a claim by itself, but it is a court record about the dog worth collecting for your case. On breed, in Garcia v. Village of Tijeras the court of appeals in 1988 upheld a village ordinance banning American Pit Bull Terriers against vagueness, due process, and takings challenges.
New Mexico puts the reporting duty on you. Under the state health department’s animal control rule, 7.4.2.9 NMAC, when anyone is bitten it is the duty of that person, a parent or guardian, or anyone who knows where the dog is to immediately notify the animal control officer or the local public health office. The report starts the confinement and creates a dated record your claim can rely on. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
The same rule says a dog that bites a person must either be destroyed and its head sent to the state laboratory for rabies testing, or confined immediately at the owner’s expense, at a place and in a manner animal control designates. If the dog shows signs of rabies during the ten day confinement and observation period, it is destroyed and tested. Whether you need rabies shots is for your doctor and the health department to decide.
Every dog over three months old must be vaccinated against rabies under NMSA 77-1-3, and keeping an unvaccinated dog is unlawful under 77-1-10. If the owner cannot show a current certificate, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog.
Rabies is real here. The New Mexico Department of Health reported in March 2026 that the state confirmed 13 rabid animals in 2025 and 12 in 2024, and that the year’s first case was a bobcat in Sierra County that attacked several dogs.
New Mexico is not broken out 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, according to the Triple-I report. That is an insurance claim average across every claim, large and small. It is not a settlement value and it does not predict any one case.
What actually moves the number in a New Mexico case:
Our overview of dog bite settlement amounts explains how injury levels are valued, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges.
The Insurance Information Institute says standard homeowners and renters policies typically cover dog bite liability up to the policy’s liability limits, usually $100,000 to $300,000. Anything above the limit is the owner’s personal responsibility, which is why identifying every policy matters.
Start with the owner’s homeowners or renters policy. If a landlord or a business may share responsibility, identify its liability policy too.
Do not accept a quick no from an insurer. In Dove v. State Farm, decided in 2017, a utility worker reading a meter was hurt by a tenant’s 150-pound Bullmastiff, and the landlord’s insurer refused to defend the tenant on the ground that she did not qualify as an insured under the landlord’s rental dwelling policy. Because the facts tended to show she was arguably covered, the court of appeals held that the insurer breached its duty to defend. Coverage questions are often closer than an adjuster makes them sound.
Two more New Mexico points. The Dangerous Dog Act does not require the owner of a declared dangerous dog to carry liability insurance, so a registration does not guarantee a policy. If the owner has no policy at all, look early for a landlord, employer, or other responsible party who does.
For the whole process from start to finish, read our guide on how to file a dog bite claim.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and New Mexico is a state where the work happens early. Without a statute, the case usually turns on what the owner knew, so we move quickly to collect animal control records, earlier complaints, impoundments, and any dangerous dog proceeding before they are hard to find. We plead negligence alongside the knowledge claim so that a first bite is still a case. We look for every responsible party and track the 90 day government notice.
We deal with the insurer so you do not have to, and we push back when an adjuster tries to assign you a share of fault. 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 injured people who need someone else to carry the paperwork.
We take dog bite cases across New Mexico, including Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Roswell, and Farmington. 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.
Not in the way people usually mean it. New Mexico has no dog bite statute, so a victim proceeding on the common law rule must show the owner knew or should have known the dog was vicious. But that knowledge can be inferred from circumstances such as warnings the owner gave, and a victim can also sue in negligence when the owner failed to control the dog where an injury was foreseeable, with no prior bite required.
Three years from the bite for most claims, and a child gets until age 19 or three years from the bite, whichever comes later. If a city, county, school district, or state agency could be responsible, written notice is due within 90 days and the lawsuit within two years. Parents should treat three years as the deadline for their own claim for the child's bills.
Yes. New Mexico uses pure comparative fault, so on a negligence claim your share of fault lowers the award by that percentage but never eliminates it. Someone found 70 percent at fault still recovers 30 percent of the damages. A child under seven cannot be found negligent at all under New Mexico law.
Sometimes. A landlord is not responsible simply for allowing a tenant to keep a dog. The stronger landlord cases involve shared spaces the landlord controls, such as courtyards, parking lots, and hallways, where the landlord knew or should have known about a dangerous or loose dog and did nothing. The New Mexico Supreme Court recognized that kind of claim in a 1988 case involving a child bitten on housing project grounds.
The Tort Claims Act sets limits when the defendant is a government body: $300,000 for medical expenses and $400,000 per person for other damages from one occurrence, with a $750,000 total for those other damages and property damage, and no punitive damages. Against a private owner whose conduct was malicious, willful, reckless, or wanton, a jury may also award punitive damages.
Under the state's rabies rules, the dog is either destroyed and tested for rabies or confined at the owner's expense for ten days of observation, at a place animal control approves. Separately, animal control can ask a court to declare the dog dangerous or potentially dangerous, which leads to strict registration conditions or, if the owner does not comply, euthanasia.
Your local animal control officer or the local public health office, as soon as you can. New Mexico's health rules make it the duty of the person bitten, a parent or guardian, or anyone who knows where the dog is to give that notice. The report triggers the confinement period and creates an official record for your claim.
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