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Vermont makes a dog bite victim prove negligence. There is no dog bite statute, so the claim runs on common law: the owner or keeper is responsible when they had reason to know the dog was a probable source of danger and did not use reasonable control and restraint. The Vermont Supreme Court reaffirmed that rule in 2014 in a case about a three-year-old bitten in the face, and said any move to strict liability belongs to the Legislature. A bill to do exactly that was filed in 2025 and never left committee.
This page covers what the knowledge rule really requires and how it is proved, Vermont’s town-by-town leash rules, who counts as an owner or keeper, trespass and provocation, the comparative negligence bar, a child’s case, landlord liability after two Supreme Court decisions, deadlines including claims against towns and the State, damages, the town vicious dog hearing under 20 V.S.A. 3546, bite reporting and the 10 day confinement, settlement value, and insurance. The short version: in Vermont the dog’s history is the case, and it gets harder to prove every week.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Vermont is one of the states without a dog bite statute, and its highest court has said it will not write one from the bench. In Martin v. Christman, decided June 13, 2014, a three-year-old asked a camper whether she could pet his boxer, he said yes, and the dog knocked her down and bit her face. Her parents asked the court to adopt strict liability. The court declined, holding that Vermont law requires proof of a dog owner’s negligence, and it said that even if a change were warranted it should come from the Legislature. It acknowledged the child’s innocence of fault and still affirmed.
The rule the court kept goes back to 1880. In Davis v. Bedell the court put it this way: the keeper of a domestic dog is not liable unless the owner had some reason to know the animal was a probable source of danger. Once that knowledge exists, the owner must exercise reasonable control and restraint, and failing to is negligence. People elsewhere call this the one bite rule, though that name is misleading here, as the next section explains.
House Bill 183, introduced in 2025, would have made owners liable whether or not they knew of any dangerous propensity. It was referred to the House Judiciary Committee on February 11, 2025, and the bill status page shows no later action. So the most important evidence in a Vermont case is what the owner knew before the bite, and that evidence lives in neighbors’ memories, town records, and the owner’s own words.
A Vermont dog bite claim is an ordinary negligence claim with a dog-specific twist. You must prove four things:
Here is the part most people get wrong. Vermont does not require proof of an earlier bite. Davis v. Bedell said that prior complaints from earlier victims are not essential, and that the owner is not immune until someone has actually been hurt. The terrier in that case had never injured anyone in ten years, but neighbors testified it regularly rushed into the road to bark, snarl, and growl at people walking and cycling past, the owners had seen it, and one owner admitted the dog had been made ugly. That was enough for the jury, and the verdict stood.
The flip side is real too. In Gross v. Turner (2018), one dog described as hyper and another that sometimes growled but had never bitten at anyone did not show a caretaker knew the dogs were an abnormal danger. Each dog is judged on its own history, and the court has never held that breed alone puts anyone on notice. And in Hillier v. Noble, a case the court decided on trespass grounds, it added that even owners who knew of danger owed only reasonable control and restraint. Their watchdog was on a 10 to 12 foot chain fastened to a stake driven four feet into the ground, and the court said the law does not yet require household pets to be caged or destroyed.
Vermont leaves leash rules to its towns. Under 20 V.S.A. 3549, the legislative body of a city or town may by ordinance regulate the licensing, keeping, leashing, muzzling, restraint, impoundment, and destruction of dogs and their running at large. To learn whether a leash was required where you were bitten, start with that town’s dog ordinance. One statewide carve-out: a town may not regulate the barking or running at large of a registered working farm dog on the farm while it is herding or guarding.
An ordinance has limits in a lawsuit. In Higgins v. Bailey, 2021 VT 74, the Vermont Supreme Court explained that safety statutes and regulations can supply the standard of care where a common law duty already exists, but do not themselves create a privately enforceable duty, and that an ordinance gives an injured person a right to sue only in certain circumstances. The plaintiff there tried to build a claim against off-site landlords on a Marshfield dangerous dog ordinance and lost.
So treat a leash violation as support for the knowledge case rather than a substitute for it. A dog that keeps getting loose, a prior impound, an animal control warning, a neighbor’s complaint to the town: each is a dated record that the owner was told about the dog’s behavior. Get the town’s file on the dog early.
Vermont’s common law reaches both the owner and the keeper of a dog. The Supreme Court said in 2018 that the term keeper is not clearly defined anywhere in its caselaw. It pointed to an 1898 decision, Plummer v. Ricker, holding that a father who housed, fed, and kept his minor son’s dog as a member of the family could be regarded as its keeper, and said this suggests a keeper exercises a degree of control and care similar to an owner’s.
The court in Gross v. Turner also cited a New York decision holding that a visitor’s calling a dog, giving it commands, or letting it in and out was not enough to make her a keeper. It then decided that case on a different ground: even assuming a dinner guest was a keeper, nobody showed he knew the dogs were dangerous. Every possible defendant has to be tied to knowledge, one by one. In Carr v. Case, a jury verdict stood against the husband, where the evidence allowed the jury to find he knew his chained dog was dangerous, while a directed verdict for his wife was affirmed because nothing showed she knew.
The dog chapter has its own broader definition. 20 V.S.A. 3541 defines owner, for that chapter, to include anyone with actual or constructive possession of a dog and anyone who provides it feed or shelter. That definition opens with the words as used in this chapter, so it governs the chapter’s licensing, rabies control, and town vicious dog rules. Whether someone who only fed or sheltered a dog is a keeper in a lawsuit is decided under the common law test above. See what determines ownership of a dog. If you were caring for the dog yourself, as a sitter, walker, or roommate, raise that with a lawyer early.
Because Vermont has no dog bite statute, it has no list of statutory defenses either. The fights come from general negligence law.
Trespass. This defense can defeat a claim outright. The rule the Supreme Court applied in Hillier is that an owner or occupant owes no duty to a trespasser, adult or child, to protect against unsafe and dangerous conditions on the land, subject to certain limits the court found did not apply there. In Hillier v. Noble an eleven-year-old had permission to enter the neighbors’ yard only to fetch a stray ball. He went in for his cat instead, walked inside the chained watchdog’s reach, and was bitten. The court held he was a trespasser owed no duty and reversed his jury verdict. In 2014 the court abolished the old line between licensees and invitees, so lawful visitors are owed reasonable care in all the circumstances, but it left the trespasser rule alone.
Provocation. The word appears in Vermont’s dog law only in the town vicious dog procedure. In a lawsuit, what the victim did before the bite is judged under the comparative negligence statute. In Carr v. Case, where a visitor left the path to pet a chained dog, the jury was properly told to compare the visitor’s negligence with the owner’s. See dog bite provocation.
Assumption of risk. In Sunday v. Stratton Corp. the Supreme Court said that secondary assumption of risk, a person’s knowing choice to face a known danger, is logically only a phase of contributory negligence under comparative negligence. Sunday was a skiing case, so how it applies to a dog bite is a question for a lawyer.
Vermont does let a person kill a dog that suddenly assaults them or is attacking someone, under 20 V.S.A. 3545, but not while the dog is restrained, inside its enclosure, or on the owner’s premises.
Vermont uses modified comparative negligence. Under 12 V.S.A. 1036, a plaintiff’s own negligence does not bar recovery if it was not greater than the causal total negligence of the defendant or defendants. The award is then reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s share. The Supreme Court applied that statute to a dog bite in Carr v. Case, where a visitor left the path to pet a chained dog and was bitten in the face and hand, and the jury was properly told to compare the two sides’ negligence.
Run the numbers this way. A victim found 30 percent negligent recovers 70 percent of the damages. At exactly 50 percent, the victim’s negligence is not greater than the defendants’, so the victim recovers half. At 51 percent the recovery is zero. The comparison is to the defendants’ combined negligence, so a victim at 40 percent still recovers against two defendants at 30 percent each.
The statute also changes how defendants pay. Where recovery is allowed against more than one defendant, each one pays the share of the award that matches its share of the defendants’ total negligence. If an owner and a property manager are both found negligent, each answers for its own portion. The section was amended in 2024, but only for claims involving sexual misconduct, so dog bite cases are unaffected.
Expect the insurer to look hard at the minute before the bite: reaching for the dog, stepping into a yard, stepping between two dogs. Anything you say in a recorded statement can become a percentage.
Two of the Vermont Supreme Court’s dog cases, Martin and Hillier, involved children, and in both the court ruled against the child’s claim. Martin applied the same negligence rule to a three-year-old that applies to adults, and Hillier applied the trespasser rule, which the court quoted as covering a trespasser whether adult or child. So a child’s case is built on the owner’s knowledge, the failure to restrain, and the child’s lawful reason for being where the bite happened.
A child does get more time. Under 12 V.S.A. 551, when the person entitled to sue is a minor, the limitation period runs after the disability is removed, and 1 V.S.A. 173 sets majority at 18. The three-year period for a child’s injury therefore runs until the twenty-first birthday. A parent’s own losses are a separate matter. In Carr v. Case the court held that a parent who sues only as next friend is not a party and recovers nothing of his own unless his independent loss is alleged. If you paid your child’s medical bills, ask a lawyer early whether you need to bring a claim of your own and on what deadline.
If an adjuster suggests your child teased or approached the dog, read whether a child can provoke a dog. Do not settle a child’s claim before the doctors treating the injury can say what further care to expect.
Vermont has two Supreme Court decisions on landlords and tenants’ dogs, and both turn on knowledge.
Bites off the rental property. In Gross v. Turner, 2018 VT 80, three tenant dogs ran out of a Fair Haven house and one dislocated a passing walker’s shoulder. The court adopted the Restatement rule: a landlord owes a duty to take reasonable steps to protect people outside the land if, when the lease was made, the landlord knew or had reason to know the tenant’s dog posed an unreasonable risk of harm. Reason to know means actual knowledge of facts that would alert a reasonable person, and a landlord has no obligation to investigate a dog’s history before renting. The landlord had known the dogs for years without seeing aggression, so she owed no duty, and the court refused to hold landlords who rent to owners of pit bulls, or any other breed, to a higher standard of care than the owners themselves.
Bites on the rental property. In Higgins v. Bailey, 2021 VT 74, a neighbor visiting the tenant was badly hurt by the tenant’s dog. The court did not decide whether a landlord can ever be liable to a tenant’s guest. It said two factors were critical in the cases from other states that allowed it: the landlord’s actual knowledge of the dangerous animal, and the landlord’s legal ability to reduce the risk, either by knowing before the lease began or by keeping control through the lease. Scratched door casings and a dog that sounded tough and loud, observed by the landlords’ realtor, were not knowledge of danger.
Plainly, then: a Vermont landlord is not responsible just for allowing a tenant’s dog. The claim needs proof the landlord actually knew this dog was dangerous and had a way to act, such as a lease clause or knowledge before signing. Complaints to the landlord and emails are the evidence. And as Gross v. Turner noted, under Vermont Rule of Evidence 407 a fence built after the bite is not admissible to prove negligence.
Vermont gives three years. 12 V.S.A. 512(4) requires actions for injuries to the person caused by the act or default of another to be commenced within three years, with the claim treated as accruing when the injury is discovered. A dog bite is usually discovered the day it happens, so plan on the bite date.
These immunity rules are technical, so a claim involving a town or the State needs early legal review. All of these are outside limits. The deadlines that shape a Vermont case are much shorter: the 10 day confinement, the window to get witness statements about the dog’s past behavior before memories soften, and the healing of a wound you need photographed. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
The Vermont Supreme Court’s own dog cases show how different these injuries can be.
As Martin shows, even a serious injury to a child does not change the knowledge rule, so the injury and the owner’s knowledge both have to be proved.
Vermont’s comparative negligence statute describes these as actions to recover damages for negligence resulting in personal injury, death, or property damage. The Vermont dog cases show what that has meant in practice:
What your own claim includes depends on the proof, so keep every medical bill, record of missed work, and photograph of the injury as it heals. Claims against the State are a different matter: the State’s liability under the Tort Claims Act is capped at $500,000 to any one person and $2,000,000 for all persons arising out of one occurrence.
Punitive damages are available in Vermont but hard to win. In Fly Fish Vermont v. Chapin Hill Estates (2010) the Supreme Court held that they require conduct that is outrageously reprehensible plus malice. Reckless conduct qualifies only when the defendant acted in conscious and deliberate disregard of a known, substantial, and intolerable risk of harm, knowing the harm was substantially certain to follow. A wilful violation of a law is not enough by itself.
When a dog attack causes a death, Vermont’s wrongful death statute allows such damages as are just for the pecuniary injuries to the spouse and next of kin, and where the person who died was a minor child, that includes the loss of the child’s love and companionship and the destruction of the parent-child relationship. For an overview, see dog bite compensation.
Vermont’s statewide dangerous dog procedure is a town hearing under 20 V.S.A. 3546. It is narrower than many people expect.
Two limits. If the dog is a rabies suspect, the rabies rules apply instead. And the procedure does not apply in a town whose voters have authorized the selectboard to regulate dogs by inconsistent ordinances, in which case the town’s ordinance governs. Ask the town clerk which applies where you were bitten.
A hearing does not award you money. What it can give you is a written finding about the dog. And if there was an earlier complaint or order about the same dog, the statute called for written notice of the hearing to an owner who could be found and for the order to go by certified mail, so the town file can be a dated record of what the owner was told. Wolf-hybrids are treated more strictly: because no rabies vaccine is approved for them, one that bites a person must be destroyed and tested.
Vermont runs bite follow-up through local Town Health Officers. Under section 12 of the Department of Health’s Reportable and Communicable Diseases Rule, a physician must report anyone known to have been bitten by an animal that can carry rabies to the local health officer within 24 hours. If no physician is involved, a parent or guardian reports for a child under 18 within 24 hours, and an adult reports, or has someone report, for themselves. The Department’s rabies page says bites must be reported to the Town Health Officer or another town official within 24 hours, and tells people who are bitten to contact their doctor and the Town Health Officer. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
The health officer then has an apparently healthy dog that bit a person confined and observed for 10 days, regardless of its vaccination status. No rabies vaccine is to be given to the dog during that period, a veterinarian must see it at the first sign of illness, and if signs of rabies appear it is euthanized and tested at the state laboratory. The dog may not be moved to another health district before the observation ends without both health officers’ permission. The health officer’s guidance adds that confinement can happen at the owner’s home only if the dog cannot escape or bite anyone, otherwise at a facility at the owner’s expense, and that the officer should tell the person bitten how the dog fared when the 10 days end.
Every dog over three months old must be vaccinated against rabies, and dogs over six months must be licensed with the town clerk each year by April 1, which requires a vaccination certificate under 20 V.S.A. 3581. If the dog was not vaccinated, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog. Whether you need shots is a decision for your doctor and the Department of Health.
The national insurance figures we use do not include a separate Vermont number, and an average would not tell you much about your own claim anyway. The national figure comes from the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm: in 2025 the average dog-related injury claim was $65,450 across 28,450 claims. That is a nationwide industry average, not a settlement value, and it does not predict any one case.
What actually moves the number in a Vermont case:
Our dog bite settlement amounts page explains how injuries are tiered, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges. Neither replaces a look at the evidence in your case.
The dog owner’s homeowners or renters policy matters. Vermont’s insurance regulator, the Department of Financial Regulation, describes the two parts of a standard policy that matter in its Homeowners Insurance Guide. Personal liability coverage pays for bodily injury to other people that results from the insured’s negligence. Medical payments to others coverage pays the medical expenses of someone injured on the property, injured by the insured’s unintentional actions, or harmed by the insured’s pets.
Ask the owner for the insurer’s name and policy number. Because the guide describes medical payments coverage as reaching people harmed by the insured’s pets, ask the insurer directly whether it applies to your bills; policy terms vary.
The Insurance Information Institute says homeowners and renters policies typically cover dog bite liability up to the policy’s limits, usually $100,000 to $300,000, with the owner responsible for damages above that amount. So in a serious case it pays to look for every policy that might apply: the owner’s, a household member’s, the person who had the dog that day, a landlord who knew of the danger, or a business.
One 2026 change can add a policy. Act 121, signed June 8, 2026, requires pet dealers, animal shelters, rescue organizations, and keepers of animals for breeding purposes to carry a commercially reasonable level of general liability insurance as a condition of their licenses or registrations. If a shelter, rescue, or breeder had the dog, ask about that coverage; whether it reaches a particular bite depends on the policy’s terms.
Do not accept an owner’s word that there is no insurance.
For the full sequence, read our guide on how to file a dog bite claim.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases, and Vermont is a state where the case is won or lost on evidence most people never think to gather. There is no statute to lean on. The claim depends on proving that this owner, or this keeper, or this landlord, knew this dog was dangerous before it bit you, and that they did not restrain it. That proof is spread across neighbors, town clerks, animal control officers, health officers, selectboard minutes, and the owner’s own words.
Our work is to find all of it: every witness who saw the dog act aggressively, every complaint and impound record, any earlier vicious dog hearing, and every policy that might apply. We deal with the adjuster so your account is not turned into a percentage of fault, and we wait for the medical picture before talking about value. 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 Vermont, including Burlington, South Burlington, Rutland, Essex, Colchester, Barre, Montpelier, and Brattleboro. If you or your child was bitten, contact us for a free consultation. We will tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth bringing.
Not exactly. Vermont has no dog bite statute and requires proof that the owner had reason to know the dog was a probable source of danger, but that knowledge does not have to come from an earlier bite. The Vermont Supreme Court has said prior complaints are not essential, and a dog's known habit of rushing at and snarling at people was enough in one case. What matters is the dog's past behavior and what the owner saw or was told.
No. In Martin v. Christman in 2014 the Vermont Supreme Court refused to adopt strict liability, even for a three-year-old bitten after the owner said she could pet the dog, and said any change is for the Legislature. A 2025 bill to create strict liability was referred to committee and went no further. A Vermont claim is a negligence claim.
Three years for an adult, under 12 V.S.A. 512(4). For a child the three years begin at 18, so the claim can be filed up to the twenty-first birthday. A wrongful death action must be filed within two years from discovery of the death. Waiting is risky well before then, because the neighbors and records that prove the owner's knowledge get harder to find.
Only with proof the landlord actually knew of facts showing the dog was dangerous. The Vermont Supreme Court has held that landlords have no duty to investigate a tenant's dog and that breed alone is not notice. For a bite off the property, the knowledge must have existed when the lease was made. For a guest bitten on the property, the court has said actual knowledge and the landlord's power to act, such as through the lease, are critical.
You can still recover as long as your negligence was not greater than the defendants' combined negligence, under 12 V.S.A. 1036. Your award is reduced by your percentage. At 50 percent you recover half, and at 51 percent you recover nothing, so how the minute before the bite is described matters a great deal.
The Town Health Officer in the town where it happened. A physician who treats you must report within 24 hours, and if you were not seen by a physician, you or a parent of a bitten child should report within 24 hours. The health officer then has the dog confined and watched for 10 days for signs of rabies, and the report becomes a dated record for your claim.
Not automatically. If you were bitten off the owner's property and needed medical care, you can file a written complaint with the selectboard or city council, which must hold a hearing within seven days. If the bite was unprovoked, it can order the dog muzzled, chained, confined, or humanely disposed of. Some towns use their own dog ordinances instead, so ask the town clerk.
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