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Arizona holds dog owners strictly liable for bites. Under A.R.S. 11-1025, the owner of a dog that bites someone in a public place, or someone lawfully on private property, pays for the harm whether or not the dog had ever shown aggression and whether or not the owner knew of any danger. The Arizona Supreme Court put it plainly in 1986: in Arizona, dogs do not get one free bite. The catch is time. The court of appeals has held that the strict liability claim falls under Arizona’s one-year deadline for a liability created by statute, so a victim who waits can lose the strongest claim long before the usual two-year injury deadline arrives.
This page covers the bite statute and the dog at large statute, what you must prove, leash rules, who counts as an owner, provocation, fault, a child’s case, landlords, every deadline including the 180-day notice for government defendants, damages and Arizona’s constitutional ban on caps, aggressive and vicious dogs, rabies quarantine, settlement value, and insurance, plus the 2025 rule requiring the owner’s contact information after a bite.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Arizona is a strict liability state, and the rule is written into the statute books. Section 11-1025 says the owner of a dog that bites a person “when the person is in or on a public place or lawfully in or on a private place, including the property of the owner of the dog,” is liable for the damages that person suffers, “regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner’s knowledge of its viciousness.” A guest bitten in the owner’s living room is covered the same as a jogger bitten on a sidewalk.
In Massey v. Colaric (1986) the Arizona Supreme Court called the owner “virtually an insurer of the dog’s conduct.” Compare the one bite rule used in some other states, where the victim has to prove the owner knew the dog was dangerous.
A second statute covers injuries without a bite. Section 11-1020 makes injury to any person by a dog “while at large” the “full responsibility of the dog owner or person or persons responsible for the dog.” In Massey, the injured man was thrown when loose dogs spooked the horse he was riding, and the Arizona Supreme Court treated his claim as one under the at-large statute.
Arizona also kept the older common law claim. In Murdock v. Balle (1985) the court of appeals said a victim may proceed under statutory and common law theories at the same time. Pleading both matters because the two claims have different deadlines, covered below.
Under the bite statute, the proof is short. You show that the defendant owned the dog, that the dog bit you, that you were in a public place or lawfully on private property when it happened, and what the bite cost you. The court of appeals said in Spirlong v. Browne (2014) that a plaintiff asserting a statutory dog bite claim does not need to show the defendant knew or should have known the dog had dangerous propensities abnormal to its class. The owner is liable even after taking “utmost care to prevent any harm.” In James v. Cox (1981) the court held that evidence of the dog’s gentle character is inadmissible on the statutory claim, though it can come in on provocation.
Strict liability is not unlimited liability. You still have to show the dog caused the injury, and in Johnson v. Svidergol (1988) the court said that strict liability does not mean absolute liability. There a stolen dog bit a child, and the court treated the theft as a possible intervening act that could cut off the real owner’s responsibility.
The common law negligence claim asks for more: that the defendant possessed the dog, that it had dangerous tendencies unusual for dogs, and that the defendant knew or had reason to know it.
So an Arizona file has two layers. The first is what every claim needs: who owned or kept the dog, where you were and why, medical records, bills, and photographs. The second is the dog’s history: complaints to animal control, earlier bites, an aggressive or vicious finding, and what the owner said about the dog. The second layer carries the negligence claim, which matters most if the strict liability deadline has passed.
Arizona has no general statewide leash law. State law sets leash rules only in specific situations, listed in Section 11-1012:
Everything else is local. Section 11-1005 lets each county board of supervisors regulate and prohibit dogs running at large in unincorporated areas, and cities and towns write their own dog ordinances. Where you were bitten decides which rule applies.
What a leash violation proves is mostly a question about the at-large statute. Arizona defines “at large” as “neither confined by an enclosure nor physically restrained by a leash.” A dog that got out through an open gate or slipped its collar is at large, and Section 11-1020 puts the injury on the owner or the person responsible without proof of carelessness. In Mulcahy v. Damron (1991), by contrast, a dog that bit a groomer while leashed inside a bathing tub was not at large, though the bite statute still applied.
Whether breaking a local leash ordinance is automatic proof of negligence is a question for your lawyer. It matters mainly when the strict liability deadline has passed.
Arizona’s definition is broader than a name on a license. Under Section 11-1001, an owner is any person who keeps an animal, other than livestock, for more than six consecutive days. Someone keeping a dog at an animal shelter’s request is excluded, and the definition applies to both the bite statute and the at-large statute.
The leading case on what “keeps” means is Spirlong v. Browne, decided October 28, 2014. A homeowner rented two rooms to a man whose Belgian Malinois got out of the backyard and bit a boy riding a bike. The court held that keeping a dog requires a person to exercise care, custody, or control of it, and that simply letting a dog live on property you control is not enough. The homeowner had only let the dog stay, so he was not a statutory owner. Whether someone exercised enough control will generally be a question of fact. The opinion also discusses a 1925 Arizona Supreme Court case, Perazzo v. Ortega, and the cases it relied on, which recognize that a head of household who takes a relative’s dog into the home as a member of the family may be liable for it.
The at-large statute reaches one more group: the “person or persons responsible for the dog” when the injury happened, which can include whoever was walking or watching it. Entrusting the dog to someone else does not automatically free the owner. In Mulcahy the owners had left their hound at a pet hospital, and the bite statute still applied to them when it bit the groomer.
Since a 2025 amendment, Section 11-1025 also says a person who owns or is responsible for the care of a dog that bites someone shall provide the owner’s contact information to the person who was bitten. If you are not sure who had the dog, read what determines ownership of a dog.
Provocation is the defense written into the statute. Section 11-1027 says proof that the injured person provoked the attack is a defense, and that provocation is decided by “whether a reasonable person would expect that the conduct or circumstances would be likely to provoke a dog.” Since 2022, Section 11-1025 also defines provocation, for that section, as tormenting, attacking, or inciting a dog, and says the definition includes the reasonable-person standard of Section 11-1027. See our page on dog bite provocation.
Lawful presence is the second gate. Section 11-1026 says you are lawfully on the owner’s property as an invitee or guest, or while performing a duty imposed by state law, federal law, or a city ordinance. Someone on the owner’s private property without that kind of lawful presence falls outside the bite statute.
Assumption of risk does not defeat the statutory claim. In Massey the Arizona Supreme Court said the only defense to the statutory action is provocation, with contributory negligence and assumption of risk superseded. In Mulcahy the court of appeals applied that to a professional groomer: working with dogs for a living did not mean she assumed the risk, and the only question left was provocation.
One narrow exception covers police and military dogs. Sections 11-1025 and 11-1020 do not allow a damages claim against a government agency for a bite while its dog was defending itself from a harassing or provoking act or helping an employee apprehend a suspect, investigate a crime, execute a warrant, or defend someone. The exception applies only if the agency has a written policy on using dogs for that work, and never to a victim who was not involved, or suspected of being involved, in what prompted the dog’s use.
Arizona uses pure comparative fault. Under Section 12-2505, if a jury finds a claimant partly at fault, “the claimant’s action is not barred,” and the damages are reduced in proportion to the claimant’s share. There is no 50 or 51 percent cutoff: a victim found 70 percent at fault still recovers 30 percent. A claimant who intentionally, willfully, or wantonly caused or contributed to the injury gets no such benefit.
How that rule fits a strict liability dog bite claim is a harder question. Massey (1986) said provocation is the only defense to the statutory action, with contributory negligence and assumption of risk superseded. But Arizona’s general fault statute, Section 12-2506, defines fault to include strict liability, contributory negligence, and assumption of risk. In Spirlong (2014) the parties argued over whether comparative fault applies to the dog bite statutes, and the court decided the case on other grounds. If an insurer argues your share of fault should cut a strict liability award, that is a question to put to your lawyer.
Another part of the fault statute matters in nearly every multi-defendant case. Arizona abolished joint and several liability in most injury cases, so each defendant pays only its own percentage, and the jury can assign fault to people who were never sued. If an owner, a dog walker, and a property manager share the blame, you collect each share separately, and an uninsured person’s share may be uncollectible.
In practice the owner’s insurer will argue you brought on the bite, either as provocation, which defeats the statutory claim, or as carelessness, which it will say reduces the award. Do not describe your own conduct to an adjuster in their words.
Children get more time in Arizona, but not unlimited time. Section 12-502 says that if the person entitled to sue is under 18, the period of minority is not counted, and the child then has the same time after turning 18 that anyone else would have. Applied to a dog bite, that points to the nineteenth birthday for the one-year statutory claim and the twentieth birthday for a two-year negligence claim. That pause is written for the person under 18. A parent’s own claims, such as medical bills the parent paid, are a separate matter, so do not assume they ride on the child’s longer clock.
Expect the dog’s owner to blame your child. In James v. Cox (1981) a three-year-old was bitten in the face while the adults were indoors, and the court approved instructions saying unintentional provocation is a defense and a child of tender years can provoke a dog. The jury found for the owner. That case predates the reasonable-person sentence now in Section 11-1027. If an adjuster is pointing at your child, read whether a child can provoke a dog, then talk to a lawyer.
Two Arizona rules help families. There is no cap on damages, so a child’s facial scarring is valued on its own facts, including future scar revision. And Arizona’s pattern jury instructions include loss of the parent-child relationship as a damages element. In Reben v. Ely (1985) the court of appeals recognized a parents’ own claim for loss of consortium of a child who suffered severe and permanent brain damage.
If a public school or other government body is involved, Section 12-821.01 lets a minor file the notice of claim within 180 days after turning 18. Do not wait that long if you can avoid it.
Arizona’s dog statutes put liability on the owner, and the owner definition is where landlord cases usually end. Under Spirlong, a property owner becomes a statutory owner only by exercising care, custody, or control over the dog itself. The court said treating that as enough would shift the test from control of the dog to control of the property. So an Arizona property owner is not a statutory owner of a tenant’s dog just because the dog lives on property the owner controls.
That leaves negligence, which depends on the facts of the case. In Spirlong itself the jury was also instructed on premises liability alongside the statutory claims.
A landlord who feeds the dog, walks it, or treats it as a household pet is in a different position, and may meet the care, custody, or control test.
Because Arizona liability is several only, a landlord found partly at fault pays only that share. Its liability policy can still matter a great deal when the tenant has little or no insurance.
This is the most important section on this page. Arizona has two deadlines for the same bite, and the shorter one applies to the easier claim.
The safe rule in Arizona is simple: treat the first anniversary of the bite as your real deadline. Filing within the year protects both claims. Waiting past it can leave you with only the negligence claim, which requires proof that the owner knew or had reason to know the dog had dangerous tendencies unusual for dogs. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
Dog bites tear and crush as well as puncture, and a bite that looks like a few small holes can hide deeper damage.
The long-term picture often is not clear for months, and a claim settled in the first few weeks can leave out scar revision or counseling needed later.
Arizona has no cap on damages for injury or death, and the rule is in the state constitution. Article 2, Section 31 says no law shall be enacted “limiting the amount of damages to be recovered for causing the death or injury of any person,” and Article 18, Section 6 adds that the amount recovered for injuries “shall not be subject to any statutory limitation.” The only carve-out protects crime victims from suits by people hurt while committing a felony.
The State Bar of Arizona’s pattern jury instructions list what a jury may award:
Punitive damages are a separate question. The Arizona Supreme Court held in Linthicum v. Nationwide Life Insurance (1986) that they require an “evil mind” plus aggravated and outrageous conduct, proved by clear and convincing evidence. A government defendant cannot be made to pay punitive damages at all under Section 12-820.04. After a fatal attack, Section 12-612 lets a surviving spouse, child, parent or guardian, or the personal representative bring a wrongful death claim. For more, see dog bite compensation.
Arizona state law does not use a single “dangerous dog” label. It works with three tools instead, and cities and counties also have their own dog ordinances.
Aggressive dogs. Under Section 11-1014.01, an aggressive dog is one that has bitten a person or domestic animal without provocation, or that has a known history of attacking without provocation. The definition does not require a hearing. The owner or caretaker must take reasonable care to keep it from escaping and to control it off the property; failures are misdemeanors.
Vicious animals. Section 11-1001 defines a vicious animal as one with a propensity to attack or injure people without provocation, or one declared vicious after a hearing before a justice of the peace or city magistrate. A vicious dog may never be at large. Under Section 11-1014, a justice of the peace or city magistrate may order a vicious animal euthanized after notice to the owner and to the person who was bitten, and a hearing.
Criminal charges. Section 13-1208 makes it a class 5 felony for the owner of a dog that the owner knows or has reason to know has a history of biting or a propensity to injure people without provocation, or that a court has found vicious, when that dog bites, injures, or attacks a person while at large. Deliberately causing a dog to bite and seriously injure someone is a class 3 felony.
Breed is off the table. Since 2022, Section 11-1025 says a dog’s actual or perceived breed may not be considered in findings of fact or conclusions of law entered by a court, administrative law judge, hearing officer, arbitrator, or other legal decision-maker on whether a dog is aggressive or vicious or has created liability.
What a finding means for your civil claim: the bite statute does not depend on one, because it applies regardless of the dog’s former viciousness. As the person bitten, you are entitled under Section 11-1014 to notice of any hearing on an order to euthanize a vicious animal, and its records are worth getting.
Arizona’s bite reporting rule is broad. Section 11-1014 says a bite must be reported to the county enforcement agent immediately by any person having direct knowledge of it. If a county designates no enforcement agent, the sheriff fills that role. In practice this usually means calling local animal control, which the Arizona Department of Health Services says follows up on bites by pets. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
The report starts a quarantine. An unvaccinated dog that bites must be confined in a county pound for at least ten days, or at a veterinary hospital at the owner’s request and expense, counted from the day of the bite. A properly vaccinated dog may be quarantined at home, with the consent of the county enforcement agent and on its terms.
Why ten days: the state health department’s rabies control and bite management manual says any dog that bites a person must be observed for ten days, and that if it stays healthy through that period, it had no rabies virus in its saliva at the time of the bite and the person does not need post-exposure shots. If the dog cannot be found, treatment is for your doctor and public health officials to decide.
Rabies in Arizona lives mostly in wildlife. The manual names bats, skunks, and foxes as the principal hosts, and reports that from 1990 to 2019 four unvaccinated dogs tested positive in the state. Arizona requires a rabies vaccination before a dog can be licensed. If the owner cannot produce a record, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog.
For your claim, the report creates a dated official record naming the dog, the owner, and the place, and it is often the first document an insurer asks to see.
We have not found a published average settlement figure for Arizona dog bite cases from any official source, and Arizona does not appear in the latest state-by-state insurance table. 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, and Arizona was not among the ten states they broke out separately. That national figure 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 an Arizona case:
Our Arizona average dog bite settlement page works through these factors in more detail, our overview of dog bite settlement amounts explains injury levels, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges.
In most Arizona dog bite cases the money comes from a homeowners or renters liability policy, not from the dog owner’s own savings. 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 a serious injury case often turns on finding every policy that might apply: the owner’s, a household member’s, the person who was watching the dog, and sometimes a landlord’s.
Arizona has its own rule on breed and insurance. Section 20-1510 says a dog’s breed may not be the sole factor an insurer uses in underwriting a homeowners or renters policy, or in questionnaires about dogs on the insured property. It applies to new and renewed policies issued after June 30, 2023. It does not stop an insurer from considering breed along with other information, such as a prior bite, so it is narrower than an outright ban.
Do not assume there is no coverage because of the dog’s breed, because the owner rents, or because the owner says so. Then let a lawyer deal with the adjuster, because the insurer’s first call is usually about how the bite happened, and your answers will be used to argue provocation or fault.
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 Arizona rewards a fast start. The strict liability statute is strong, but it comes with a one-year clock, a provocation defense that insurers lean on, and an owner definition that turns on who actually controlled the dog. Our work is to file on time, identify everyone responsible for the dog, get the animal control and quarantine records, find any history that supports a negligence claim, and locate every policy that might pay.
We deal with the insurer so that you do not have to, and we push back when an adjuster recasts an accident as provocation. 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 injury clients who need someone else to carry the paperwork.
We take dog bite cases across Arizona, including Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, Glendale, Gilbert, and Tempe. 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, and how much time you have left to bring it.
No. A.R.S. 11-1025 makes the owner liable for a bite in a public place or while the victim is lawfully on private property, with no proof that the dog bit before and no proof the owner knew it was dangerous. The Arizona Supreme Court has said dogs in Arizona do not get one free bite. The owner's main defense is that the victim provoked the dog.
Both, depending on the claim. The Arizona Court of Appeals held in 1985 that the strict liability claim under the dog bite statute must be filed within one year, because it is a liability created by statute. A negligence claim, which requires proof the owner knew or had reason to know the dog was dangerous, generally has two years. Filing within the first year keeps both options open, and a claim against a government body also needs written notice within 180 days.
You may. The bite statute covers only bites, but A.R.S. 11-1020 makes the owner or the person responsible for a dog fully responsible for injuries the dog causes while at large, meaning it was neither fenced in nor on a leash. The Arizona Supreme Court applied that statute to a rider thrown from a horse that loose dogs had spooked. A negligence claim may also be available.
Arizona judges provocation by asking whether a reasonable person would expect the conduct or circumstances to be likely to provoke a dog, and since 2022 the statute describes provocation as tormenting, attacking, or inciting a dog. If provocation is proven it defeats the statutory claim, so insurers raise it often. Older Arizona cases allowed even unintentional conduct to count, which is why your own description of the bite should come after you have talked to a lawyer.
Usually not under the strict liability statute. The Arizona Court of Appeals held in 2014 that a property owner is a statutory owner only if they exercised care, custody, or control over the dog itself, and that letting the dog live on the property is not enough. Whether a landlord can be responsible in negligence depends on the facts; in that case the jury was also instructed on premises liability.
No. The Arizona Constitution bars any law limiting the amount of damages for injury or death. Medical bills, lost earnings, pain, disfigurement, anxiety, and loss of enjoyment of life are all recoverable in full if proven. The practical limit is usually insurance: most homeowners and renters policies carry liability limits in the low hundreds of thousands, so finding every policy that applies matters.
Senate Bill 1241, signed May 7, 2025 and in effect from September 26, 2025, added a rule to A.R.S. 11-1025: a person who owns or is responsible for the care of a dog that bites someone must give the bitten person the owner's contact information. It did not change who is liable or the deadlines. The duty falls on anyone who owns or is responsible for the care of the dog, so it covers the person walking or watching it, not only the owner.
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