New York City Dog Bite Lawyer
New York City Dog Bite Lawyer
On This Page
- New York City Dog Bite Statistics
- New York Dog Bite Law: Vicious Propensities and the 2025 Negligence Change
- New York City Leash Law and Dog Ordinances
- New York City Animal Control and Rabies Follow-Up
- What To Do After a New York City Dog Bite
- New York City Hospitals and Urgent Care for Dog Bites
- How To Report a Dog Bite in New York City
- Who Can Be Held Responsible for a New York City Dog Bite
- Filing a Dog Bite Claim in New York City
- Compensation for New York City Dog Bite Victims
- Comparative Fault in New York Dog Bite Cases
- Statute of Limitations for New York City Dog Bite Cases
- Homeowner and Renter Insurance for New York City Dog Bites
- Why Choose Dog Bite Laws for Your New York City Case
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Two Routes: Since April 17, 2025, a New York bite victim can sue on strict liability for a dog's known vicious propensities, on ordinary negligence, or on both at once.
- City Health Code: Bite reporting and rabies follow-up in all five boroughs run through the New York City Health Department under the city's own Health Code, not a county health department.
- Everyone Must Report: The city Health Code requires the person bitten, a bitten child's parent, the dog's owner and any other person who knows about the bite to notify the Health Department immediately by telephone.
- Reported Bites: The Health Department's public dog bite dataset holds 39,082 reported bites from 2015 through 2025, including 5,049 reported in 2025.
- Borough Split: Reported 2025 totals were Queens 1,192, Manhattan 1,192, Brooklyn 1,126, the Bronx 942 and Staten Island 395.
- Separate Nonprofit: Animal Care Centers of NYC is the city's contracted animal sheltering nonprofit, and it is not the route for reporting a bite.
- Ninety Day Trap: When a city agency, public school, housing authority or city park is involved, a sworn notice of claim is generally due within 90 days instead of three years.
- Three Years: The ordinary deadline against a private dog owner, landlord or business is three years from the bite, and two years from the date of death in a fatal attack.
A dog bite in New York City is frightening and expensive, and the law that decides who pays for it changed recently. New York law now gives a victim two routes instead of one: strict liability when the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous, and ordinary negligence, which the state’s highest court restored on April 17, 2025. The city adds its own layer, because the city Health Department, not a county, runs animal bite reporting and rabies follow-up in all five boroughs under the city’s own Health Code.
This page covers the city’s bite numbers, the leash rules, who has to report a bite here, which hospitals are trauma centers, who can be responsible, how long you have, and where the money comes from.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
New York City Dog Bite Statistics
New York City publishes a real bite count. The Health Department’s reported dog bite dataset holds 39,082 bite reports covering 2015 through 2025. The 2025 total, 5,049 reported bites, is the highest in the dataset’s eleven years, up from 4,041 in 2024.
By borough in 2025: Queens and Manhattan tied at 1,192 each, Brooklyn 1,126, the Bronx 942 and Staten Island 395. These are bites that were reported, and the Department states the breed and animal details are unverified.
Its 2017 Vital Signs analysis shows how far under the real figure that count sits. Using state hospital data for 2007 through 2014, it found an average of 6,028 emergency department visits and 315 hospitalizations a year among city residents, with children 17 and under at 1.5 times the adult visit rate.
New York Dog Bite Law: Vicious Propensities and the 2025 Negligence Change
New York has no general dog bite statute. What it has is a court-made rule, and since 2025 that rule has two parts.
Route one, strict liability for vicious propensities. If the owner knew or should have known the dog had vicious propensities, the owner is liable for the harm they caused, no matter how careful the owner was. You do not need a prior bite. The Court of Appeals has said knowledge can come from a dog known to growl, snap or bare its teeth, from how the owner chose to restrain it, or from any behavior showing a proclivity to put others at risk. That is why calling New York a one bite state is wrong.
Route two, ordinary negligence, and this is the change. On April 17, 2025 the Court of Appeals decided Flanders v Goodfellow and overruled Bard v Jahnke to the extent Bard barred a negligence claim against the owner of a domestic animal. Before that date a New York victim had strict liability and nothing else. Now a victim can also show the owner failed to use reasonable care with the dog, and can plead both theories at once. Much of what is published about New York bites predates April 2025 and says there is no negligence claim. That is not how the law reads today.
New York City Leash Law and Dog Ordinances
Leash rules in New York are local, and here they sit in the Health Code, published as chapters of title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York. The Health Department posts its own copies and notes they are not the official version, so the controlling text is the one in title 24.
Health Code 161.05(a) says a person who owns, possesses or controls a dog shall not permit it to be in any public place, or any open or unfenced area abutting a public place, unless the dog is effectively restrained by a leash not more than six feet long. Six feet applies on sidewalks, not only in parks.
In Parks Department areas, off-leash use is limited to a window that may not begin earlier than 9:00 P.M. or extend past 9:00 A.M., and anyone with a dog off leash must be able to show proof of a current license and rabies vaccination.
New York City Animal Control and Rabies Follow-Up
Outside New York City, bites and rabies exposures go to the county health department. The city is genuinely different, and not by custom: the state Public Health Law sections that set up the county rabies system say in terms that they do not apply to the city of New York. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene runs it here.
Animal Care Centers of NYC is not the Health Department. ACC is a nonprofit and the city’s contracted provider for animal sheltering, the only open-admissions shelter here. It is not where a bite gets reported.
The ten day observation. Here the Health Code puts the observation duty on the person who owns or controls the biting dog, who must watch it for ten days and telephone the Health Department at once if it dies, shows symptoms of illness, or escapes. The Department’s guidance says the owner “will be directed to watch their animal for 10 days at home,” and that “if the animal is still alive and healthy after this period, you do not need to get a rabies vaccine.” Whether you need treatment before then is for your doctor and the Health Department.
What To Do After a New York City Dog Bite
These steps protect your health first and your claim second.
- Get away from the dog, and call 911 if anyone is badly hurt.
- Get the owner’s information, and whether the dog’s rabies vaccination is current.
- Wash the wound and get treated the same day. The Health Department says to wash it with soap and water for 10 to 15 minutes. Bite wounds get infected easily.
- Report it within 24 hours. Call 311, call the Animal Bite Unit at 646-364-1799, or use the Health Department’s Report an Animal Bite form.
- In a building, complain in writing through the building’s or housing authority’s own system, so there is a ticket number.
- Photograph and keep everything. The wounds over several days, the place, any warning sign, discharge paperwork and proof of missed work.
- Get names and numbers from witnesses. Neighbors, delivery drivers, the doorman, dog walkers. In the 2025 case that changed New York law, two other postal carriers’ sworn statements helped save the claim.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the owner’s insurer first. A few offhand words get used to argue provocation.
- Watch the calendar if a public body is involved. A bite in a city park, public housing or a public school can carry a 90 day deadline.
New York City Hospitals and Urgent Care for Dog Bites
A deep wound, a bite to the face or hands, or any serious bite to a child should go to an emergency department rather than urgent care. The centers below are as listed by NYSDOH, page revised July 2026. New York designates adult and pediatric levels separately, and a state designation is not verification by the American College of Surgeons.
- Manhattan. Bellevue and Weill Cornell Medical Center, each Level I adult and Level II pediatric. Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, Level I pediatric, not designated for adults. NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, Level II adult and pediatric. Mount Sinai Morningside, Level II adult.
- Brooklyn. Kings County and NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, each Level I adult. Maimonides Medical Center, Level I adult and Level II pediatric. Brookdale Hospital Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, each Level II adult.
- Queens. Elmhurst, New York-Presbyterian/Queens and Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, each Level I adult. Cohen Children’s Medical Center, Level I pediatric and not designated for adults, which the state lists under Queens County although its campus sits in New Hyde Park.
- The Bronx. Jacobi, Level I adult and Level II pediatric. Lincoln, Level I adult. SBH Health System, Level II adult.
- Staten Island. Richmond University Medical Center and Staten Island University Hospital North, each Level I adult and Level II pediatric.
Every level comes from the state trauma center list. Several boroughs have more than one Level I adult center. Keep every record, because medical evidence supports later scar revision costs.
How To Report a Dog Bite in New York City
This is one of the most useful things to know about a New York City bite. The city Health Code provision on reports by owners, exposed persons and others, section 11.27(b), requires the person bitten, that person’s parent or guardian if a minor, the owner of the biting animal, the owner of a bitten animal, and any other person having knowledge of the bite to immediately notify the Health Department by telephone.
Read the last item again. In New York City the duty reaches a bystander. Everywhere else in New York the state rule puts it on health care providers, and, where no provider is in attendance, on the child’s parent or guardian if the person exposed is a child and on the exposed adult otherwise.
- Call 311, or the Animal Bite Unit at 646-364-1799. The Health Department tells a bitten person to report through 311, and says bite reports arrive by phone to 311 or to that unit.
- Use the Health Department’s Report an Animal Bite form. It opens by saying any animal bite must be reported within 24 hours and that what you enter is confidential.
- Call 911 for an attack in progress. The NYPD routes non-emergency complaints to 311, and there is no borough sheriff doing animal control, because the New York City Sheriff serves court papers.
A hospital that treats you has its own duty to report, so do not assume yours was filed. There is a legal reason too: under the city’s Health Code, a Health Department record of a bite report is prima facie evidence that the dog is dangerous. And what happens after a bite is reported is usually a ten day observation.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for a New York City Dog Bite
In a city of renters, doormen and delivery routes, the owner is often not the only person on the hook. New York defines an owner broadly: an owner is anyone who harbors or keeps a dog, and to harbor a dog means to provide it food or shelter.
- The dog’s owner, strictly liable on known vicious propensities and now also exposed to a negligence claim. Whoever was handling the dog may be liable too.
- Roommates and other adults in the household. A New York appellate court has held co-tenants can be strictly liable for an attack by a dog owned by only one of them, where they took part in its care enough to have joined in harboring it. See who owns a dog.
- The landlord or building owner, if the landlord knew a dog was kept there, knew or had reason to know it was dangerous, and had enough control to remove or confine it. Since 2025 we have seen at least one New York trial court allow a negligence claim against a landlord, though that is persuasive only.
- A public housing authority, sued as the building’s owner, with a much shorter deadline. These cases turn on a complaint you can prove, and in the cases we have seen, a tenant who complained once to an unnamed employee lost.
- A business that had the dog in its care. New York’s highest court has held a veterinary clinic can be sued in negligence. Whether that reaches groomers and kennels is unsettled.
- The city acting as a government. Enforcing animal control rules is a governmental function, so a city is normally not liable just for knowing about a dangerous dog.
Filing a Dog Bite Claim in New York City
New York City’s court structure differs from the rest of the state. New York’s main trial court is called the Supreme Court, it has no dollar ceiling, and there is one for each of the five counties. A serious bite case, meaning surgery, permanent scarring or a child, belongs there. The city also has its own Civil Court, with a location in every borough, handling claims up to $50,000 and with a small claims side up to $10,000. Your lawyer handles that part. What decides your case is the part you control.
- Get treated, and keep going. Gaps in treatment are one of the first things an adjuster points at.
- Keep records in one place. Bills, prescriptions, dated photographs and pay stubs.
- Report the bite. The record ties the dog to an owner and may show earlier complaints.
- Say nothing recorded until you have a lawyer.
- Move fast if a public body is involved. A city park, school or housing authority building can put you on a 90 day clock.
- Call before you sign anything. Read about how to file a dog bite claim.
Compensation for New York City Dog Bite Victims
A New York verdict is itemized, so it helps to see what an early offer leaves out. Economic losses cover past and future medical care, rabies treatment if it was given, reconstructive and revision surgery, scar treatment, psychological treatment, lost wages and earning capacity, and a parent’s time off to care for an injured child. Non-economic losses cover pain and suffering, disfigurement as a separate item, loss of enjoyment of life, and a spouse’s claim. Emotional trauma after a dog attack is real, treatable and compensable.
New York does not work from a fixed dollar ceiling in a dog bite case. Instead an appellate court can raise or lower an award that “deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation,” so no honest lawyer quotes a number early. Our settlement calculator and our page on the average dog bite settlement in New York explain what moves it.
Two rules help you. The jury hears what the care was worth rather than the discounted number, and the judge decides after the verdict what health insurance actually paid. Voluntary charitable contributions raised for you are protected by statute and are not subtracted.
Comparative Fault in New York Dog Bite Cases
In a dog bite claim New York is a pure comparative fault state. If a jury decides part of what happened was your own fault, your award is reduced by that percentage and nothing more. There is no cutoff in a dog bite claim: someone found half at fault still recovers half. It is also not your job to prove you were careful. Fault on the victim’s side is a defense the other side has to raise and prove.
In New York City the arguments follow geography. Insurers point to crowded sidewalks, lobbies, elevators and hallways, and say the victim startled or reached for the dog. The city’s own data cuts the other way: in the Health Department’s 2014 figures, more than a third of reported bites to older children and adults happened while the victim was passing by, entering or leaving a dog’s area.
A small child is not held to an adult’s judgment, and whether a child can provoke a dog is answered with the child’s age in mind.
Statute of Limitations for New York City Dog Bite Cases
Deadlines are where New York City cases get lost, because the answer depends on who you are claiming against.
- Three years from the date of the bite against a private dog owner, a landlord or a business.
- Two years from the date of death in a fatal attack, and that claim belongs to the estate’s representative, not to family members directly.
- Ninety days, then one year and ninety days. If a public body is involved, a sworn written notice of claim is generally due within 90 days and the lawsuit within one year and 90 days. That covers a bite in a park, at a public school, in public housing, or involving a city worker.
- Ninety days for the State of New York, for a bite on state property.
- Transit and other authorities set their own. A bite on a subway platform, a bus or other authority property may involve an entity with its own notice statute and deadline.
- A child’s deadline is different and usually longer, but a parent’s own claim and a public body deadline may not be.
None of these pauses the clocks: not the Health Department’s investigation, not a criminal case, not an adjuster who says the file is open. Read more about the dog bite statute of limitations.
Homeowner and Renter Insurance for New York City Dog Bites
Most dog bite recoveries come from insurance rather than someone’s savings. In a city where most people rent, that usually means the dog owner’s renters policy, the building owner’s policy, or a commercial policy if the bite happened at a business. The Insurance Information Institute says homeowners and renters policies typically cover dog bite liability up to the policy limits, typically $100,000 to $300,000, and the owner is personally responsible above the limit.
New York stands out in the claim data. In the Institute’s 2025 figures, New York had 1,308 dog-related injury claims and the highest average cost per claim in the country at $92,154. Those are insurance claims rather than bites, they include injuries such as fractures, and are not adjusted for population.
New York also limits what a homeowners insurer may do about breeds. Under the state Insurance Law, an insurer may not refuse to issue or renew, cancel, charge more, or cut back coverage on a homeowners policy based solely on owning a dog of a particular breed or mix of breeds. It may treat a dog differently once that dog has been designated dangerous under state law. Ask the owner for the insurance company and policy number.
Why Choose Dog Bite Laws for Your New York City Case
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, which is why the New York City details here are the ones we work with: the five county courts, the Health Department bite record and the dangerous dog file behind it, the housing authority complaint trail, and the short deadlines that come with a city agency.
The 2025 change is the other reason to talk to someone who follows this. The strict liability route runs on what the owner knew, which means neighbors, delivery drivers and doormen. The negligence route runs on what the owner did: the leash, the door, the gate and the elevator.
We ask for the bite report and any earlier complaints, find out who else fed and sheltered the dog, identify every policy that might cover the loss, and deal with the adjuster. You pay nothing up front and no fee unless we recover money for you.
We also handle cases in Buffalo, Rochester and Yonkers. If you or your child was bitten in the five boroughs, contact us for a free case review, or read about founder Michael Agruss.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, and this is where the city is stricter than the rest of New York. The city Health Code requires the person bitten, a bitten child's parent or guardian, the biting animal's owner, the owner of a bitten animal, and any other person who knows about the bite to notify the Health Department immediately by telephone. Outside the city that duty falls on health care providers, and when no provider is in attendance it falls on a child's parent or guardian, or on the exposed adult. Call 311 or the Animal Bite Unit at 646-364-1799.
No, and people lose days on this. Animal Care Centers of NYC is a nonprofit and the city's contracted animal sheltering provider, the only open-admissions shelter in the five boroughs. It takes in strays and surrendered animals. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is the agency that receives bite reports, runs rabies follow-up and handles the city's dangerous dog process. Report the bite to the Health Department.
In 2025 Queens and Manhattan tied at 1,192 reported bites each, followed by Brooklyn at 1,126, the Bronx at 942 and Staten Island at 395. Across 2015 through 2025 Queens leads with 9,844. Raw counts follow population, though. By rate, the Health Department's 2014 hospital data put Staten Island highest at 114.7 emergency visits per 100,000 residents, nearly twice Manhattan's rate.
For a deep wound, a facial or hand bite, or a seriously injured child, yes. Every borough has at least one state-designated trauma center, and several have more than one Level I adult center. New York designates pediatric trauma levels separately, and a child with a complex facial wound may be transferred to a hospital carrying a pediatric designation. In an emergency, call 911 and let them route you.
Possibly, alongside the dog's owner. New York asks whether the building owner knew a dog was kept there, knew or should have known it was dangerous, and had enough control of the premises to remove or confine it. A managing agent's knowledge can count. These cases turn on proof: a written complaint with a date and a ticket number tends to win where a verbal word to an unnamed employee fails. Public housing also brings a much shorter deadline.
They can be, because the entity behind the property changes the rules and the calendar. A bite in a city park or at a public school points at a city body, which brings a short sworn notice requirement. A bite on a bus, a subway platform or other authority property may involve a public authority with its own separate notice statute. The dog's owner is still the main defendant in both. Get the entity identified within days.
Often yes. Many renters carry a renters policy with liability coverage, so ask before assuming there is none. Beyond that, the building owner may be responsible on its own policy, a roommate who fed and sheltered the dog may be a defendant, and a business that had the dog in its care may carry commercial coverage. If no policy exists at all, the claim runs against the owner personally, which is harder but not automatically worthless.
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