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Nebraska makes a dog’s owner strictly liable when the dog bites someone who is not a trespasser. Section 54-601 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes says the owner is liable for “any and all damages” caused by the bite, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has held that a victim does not have to prove the dog bit anyone before or that the owner knew it was dangerous. The same statute reaches a dog that wounds, injures, worries, or chases a person without biting, but the court reads those words to cover only aggressive acts. A playful dog that bowls someone over is handled as an ordinary negligence claim.
This page covers the bite statute and its limits, what you have to prove, leash rules, who counts as an owner, the trespass and provocation defenses, how fault is weighed, a child’s case, landlord liability, every deadline including the one-year notice for government defendants, what damages Nebraska allows and why punitive damages are not among them, the dangerous dog law, rabies observation, settlement value, and insurance. Section 54-601 was last amended in 2009.
Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack cases. Talk to us for free, and pay no fee unless we recover money for you.
Nebraska is a strict liability state for dog bites. Section 54-601 says the owner or owners of any dog “shall be liable for any and all damages” that accrue to any person, other than a trespasser, by reason of having been bitten. The Nebraska Supreme Court said in Paulsen v. Courtney in 1979 that the statute creates a cause of action based on strict liability, and that owners are liable for biting without proof of scienter, the old legal word for knowing the dog was dangerous. There is no free first bite here, which sets Nebraska apart from states that still follow the one bite rule.
The statute has a second clause. It makes the owner liable for damages caused by the dog “killing, wounding, injuring, worrying, or chasing” any person. That clause matters when there was no bite at all. The Legislature added the word “injuring” in 1992 after a person whose hip was broken by a dog could not recover because a broken hip is not a wound.
The court has drawn a firm line through that second clause. In Underhill v. Hobelman, decided December 18, 2009, a golden retriever let off its leash to greet a friend of its owner ran into her knee, and she needed surgery. The court held that adding “injuring” did not extend strict liability to playful or mischievous acts. In Smith v. Meyring Cattle Co. in 2019 the court went further and held that “injuring” means bodily hurt from acts directed at the person who was hurt.
The statute did not replace the older law. The common law claim against the owner of a dog known to be vicious survives beside it, and so does ordinary negligence, so a Nebraska case can rest on the statute, on the owner’s knowledge, or on plain carelessness.
For a bite, the statute asks for very little. You show that the defendant owned the dog, that the dog bit you, that you were not a trespasser when it happened, and what the bite cost you. You do not have to show that the owner was careless or that the dog had a history.
When the dog hurt you without biting, you also have to show its act was aggressive and aimed at you: chasing you, worrying you, or wounding you. The Smith decision said people can bring strict liability claims for falls “precipitated by dogs ‘worrying, or chasing’ them.” A dog that bounds over happily and knocks you down does not qualify, and neither does a dog that spooks livestock which then runs into you.
If the statute does not fit, negligence is the route: proof that someone with possession or control of the dog failed to use reasonable care, such as leaving a gate open, and that this caused your injury. Underhill is a warning. The injured woman there had pleaded negligence too, then dismissed it and relied on the statute alone, and the statute failed her.
For a trespasser, the common law claim requires proof that the dog had vicious propensities and that the owner knew it. Gather that evidence early in every case: prior animal control complaints, an earlier dangerous dog notice, and what neighbors saw.
Nebraska does not have one leash law that covers the whole state. Instead, section 54-608 makes it unlawful in every county with 80,000 or more people, and in the first-class cities inside those counties, to let a dog you own, keep, or harbor be at large. Elsewhere the rules come from local government. Counties may regulate or prohibit dogs running at large under section 54-614, and cities and villages write their own ordinances.
In those larger counties the poundmaster must investigate an at-large complaint and may file a county court complaint for violating section 54-601 or 54-608, and a court may then order the dog sterilized, seized, placed with a shelter, or destroyed.
For a bite claim, a leash violation is supporting evidence, not the heart of the case. The owner is already liable without proof of carelessness, but a citation gives you an official, dated record of how the dog reached you.
For a non-bite injury, leash rules matter much more. The playful-dog rule pushes many knock-down cases into negligence, and in Orduna v. Total Construction Services the Nebraska Supreme Court restated its rule that violating a safety regulation set by statute or ordinance is not negligence as a matter of law but is evidence of negligence for the jury to weigh with everything else. Find out which rule applied where you were hurt, and ask animal control for any record of the dog being found at large before.
Section 54-601 puts strict liability on “the owner or owners” of the dog and does not define the word. That usually means the person the dog belongs to, and a dog can have more than one owner, such as spouses or roommates who got the dog together. If you do not know who that is, read what determines ownership of a dog.
Nebraska has an old rule that can make a non-owner into an owner. Under section 54-606, a person who harbors a collarless dog about his or her premises for ten days “shall be taken and held as the owner, and shall be liable for all damages which such dog shall commit.” Someone who has kept a collarless stray about their premises for ten days is treated as its owner by that statute.
The dangerous dog and rabies laws define owner more broadly, reaching anyone who harbors or controls a dog, but those definitions are not written into section 54-601.
People who had the dog but did not own it are reached through negligence. In Van Kleek the Nebraska Supreme Court said that in addition to an owner’s liability under section 54-601 and common law liability for known vicious propensities, “the keeper of a dog can be liable to injured third parties on a negligence theory.” The court added that once a person has possession or control of a dog, that person owes a duty of care to prevent unreasonable risks of harm from the dog’s foreseeable actions.
Van Kleek also carries a warning for keepers who get bitten themselves. A dog sitter bitten on the lip by the dog she was caring for was held to be “legally responsible” for the dog, which made her an insured under the owner’s homeowners policy, and the policy excluded injuries to insureds. If you were caring for the dog when it bit you, raise it on the first call with a lawyer.
The bite statute names one exception in its own words: trespassers. The Nebraska Supreme Court added a second in Paulsen v. Courtney, adopting the rule that a person who knowingly and intentionally provokes a dog is barred from recovering under the statute. Those are the two defenses an owner will reach for first.
Trespass. In Kenney v. Barna the court defined a trespasser as a person who enters or remains on premises in another’s possession without the possessor’s express or implied consent. The court also held that a person can trespass by reaching an arm over a boundary fence, and that because trespass requires a willful act, a jury must decide whether a child was old enough to form that intent.
Losing the trespass fight does not end the case. In Guzman v. Barth a woman whose car broke down on Interstate 80 was bitten while walking to a house for help. Treating her as a trespasser, the court still let her sue under the common law by proving the owner knew the dog was vicious.
Provocation. The Paulsen rule is narrow. The provocation must be knowing and intentional, and whether it was is “a question of fact to be determined by the jury.” In Paulsen, witnesses described a boy poking the dog with sticks and throwing dirt clods at it. If an adjuster says you provoked the dog, read about dog bite provocation before you agree.
Assumption of risk. In civil actions where contributory negligence is a defense, section 25-21,185.12 defines assumption of risk as knowing and understanding a specific danger, voluntarily exposing yourself to it, and being hurt as a result. In Paulsen the trial court refused to instruct the jury on assumption of risk or contributory negligence in a bite case. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the verdict on provocation and did not rule on that refusal.
Nebraska uses modified comparative negligence. Under section 25-21,185.09, a claimant’s own negligence reduces the award in proportion, but if that negligence “is equal to or greater than the total negligence of all persons against whom recovery is sought,” the claimant recovers nothing. The statute also requires the judge to tell the jury what its percentages will do.
In numbers: a victim found 30 percent at fault recovers 70 percent of the damages. A victim at 49 percent still recovers 51 percent. At 50 percent the recovery is zero, because 50 is equal to the defendants’ share. The comparison is against everyone you are suing added together, so two defendants at 30 percent each would outweigh a victim at 40 percent.
Unless the defendants acted together in a common plan, each defendant in a negligence case is liable for all of the economic damages but only for its own percentage of the noneconomic damages, under section 25-21,185.10.
Here is the open question. These comparative fault sections apply to civil actions in which contributory negligence is a defense. In a 2006 product liability case, Shipler v. General Motors, the Nebraska Supreme Court held that section 25-21,185.09 does not provide that a plaintiff’s negligence may be applied against a claim based on strict liability in tort. Whether that reasoning carries over to a bite claim under section 54-601 is a question to put to your lawyer. What is clear is that on a negligence claim, such as a playful-dog knock-down, your share of fault will be weighed under the 50 percent bar, and that an insurer will raise your conduct on any claim.
Children are the victims in many of Nebraska’s leading dog cases: a 10-year-old in Paulsen, and 7-year-olds in Kenney and McCullough. Nebraska gives a child far more time than an adult. Under section 25-213, if the injured person was “within the age of twenty years” when the claim arose, the time limit runs only after that disability is removed. The Nebraska Supreme Court has read that phrase to last until the twenty-first birthday, so a child’s four-year period generally ends at age 25. That tolling statute also names the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act and the State Tort Claims Act.
The parent’s own claim is different. In Macku v. Drackett Products Co. the court held that the extra time “exists for the exclusive and personal benefit” of the child and does not extend the time for a parent’s related claim. Parents who paid the medical bills should not rely on the child’s long deadline for their own losses.
Expect the owner to blame the child. On a negligence claim, a child is held to the standard of a reasonable person of like age, intelligence, and experience. On trespass, Kenney requires a jury to decide whether the child was old enough to intend the act. If an adjuster is pointing at your child’s behavior, read whether a child can provoke a dog.
With a child’s deadline running to age 25, there is rarely a reason to accept a fast settlement for a facial bite before a plastic surgeon has weighed in on the scar.
A landlord is not strictly liable for a tenant’s dog in Nebraska. In McCullough v. Bozarth, decided June 30, 1989, a 7-year-old was bitten by a pit bull terrier kept by tenants, and the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the statute providing for strict liability does not apply to the owners of the leased property. The strict liability statute stays with the dog’s owner.
The court then set the rule for suing a landlord in negligence. A landlord is liable for an attack by a tenant’s dog “only where the landlord had actual knowledge of the dangerous propensities of the dog” and, with that knowledge, either leased the premises to the dog’s owner anyway or had the power under the lease to control the harboring of a dog and failed to use it. Both parts matter. Knowledge alone is not enough, and neither is control alone.
McCullough itself was dismissed before trial: the landlords denied knowing the dog was dangerous, nothing contradicted them, and control was never alleged. So a landlord claim is built on evidence, gathered quickly:
If the dog had been declared dangerous, section 54-619 also bars anyone from allowing it on premises they occupy or control unless it is confined. Whether that supports a civil claim against a property owner is a question for your lawyer.
Nebraska’s general deadline is four years. Section 25-207 gives four years for an injury to the rights of the plaintiff not arising on contract, which covers a negligence claim, and section 25-206 gives four years for a liability created by statute. Both periods are four years, so a claim under section 54-601 or in negligence generally has four years either way. The Legislature’s annotation to section 25-207 notes that an action grounded in tort must be commenced within four years of the event giving rise to it, which for a dog bite is generally the day of the bite.
The one-year notice is the deadline that catches people, for example after a bite at a city shelter or by a police K-9. For police and military dogs, section 54-601(2) also bars statutory liability to a suspect or participant in the incident when officers followed the agency’s written dog policy and the dog was responding to a harassing or provoking act or the harm came from a reasonable use of force while the dog assisted officers in an arrest, an investigation, a warrant, or defending someone. And four years is a limit, not a plan: animal control records and memories are freshest in the first weeks. Our guide to the dog bite statute of limitations explains how these clocks interact.
Nebraska’s dangerous dog law treats an injury as needing “medical treatment” when a licensed professional’s care results in sutures, surgery, or treatment of broken bones. That definition was written for animal control, not for measuring civil damages.
Keep a short diary of pain, sleep, missed work, and activities you gave up. Those notes become the evidence of noneconomic loss.
Section 54-601 makes the owner liable for “any and all damages” from a bite, and Nebraska law sorts those damages into two kinds. Section 25-21,185.08 defines economic damages as monetary losses, including medical expenses, lost earnings and earning capacity, and other out-of-pocket costs. It defines noneconomic damages as subjective losses, including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, emotional distress, loss of consortium, and humiliation.
There is a cap when the defendant is a city, county, or other political subdivision: section 13-926 limits recovery under the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act to $1 million per person and $5 million for all claims from one occurrence.
Nebraska does not allow punitive damages at all. In Distinctive Printing and Packaging Co. v. Cox, the Nebraska Supreme Court said punitive, vindictive, or exemplary damages contravene article VII, section 5 of the state constitution “and thus are not allowed in this jurisdiction.” In Nebraska an owner’s bad conduct matters because it proves liability and shapes how a jury sees the harm, not as a separate pot of money.
If a dog attack caused a death, Nebraska’s wrongful death statute lets the personal representative recover for the surviving spouse and next of kin. For more, see our page on dog bite compensation.
Nebraska’s dangerous dog law is in sections 54-617 to 54-624, last amended in 2008 and 2009. Each county must designate an animal control authority to enforce it, and the designation runs off that authority’s records.
A dangerous dog is one that, according to animal control records, has killed a person, has injured a person badly enough to need medical treatment, has killed a domestic animal without provocation, or was already found potentially dangerous, with notice to the owner, and then hurts or threatens someone. A potentially dangerous dog is one that, unprovoked, causes a lesser injury, injures a domestic animal, or approaches a person in public in a menacing fashion.
A dog is not dangerous because of an injury to someone who was tormenting, abusing, or assaulting it at the time, or who has a reported history of doing so, and police dogs are excluded entirely.
Once a dog is declared dangerous, the owner must have it spayed or neutered and microchipped within 30 days, keep it leashed or chained off the property, confine it in a locked pen with a secure top when unattended, post warning signs, and not move it to another county, city, or village without written permission. Breaking those rules is a misdemeanor and allows immediate confiscation, and a court may order the dog destroyed. Under section 54-622.01, an owner whose dangerous dog inflicts serious bodily injury on a person commits a Class I misdemeanor the first time and a Class IV felony after that. A convicted owner may not own a dangerous dog for ten years. Local governments may adopt stricter rules.
For your civil case, ask animal control for the dog’s file. A potentially dangerous determination comes with notice to the owner under section 54-617, and how a prior determination or declaration can be used in your case is a question for your lawyer. On the dog’s future, see how many times a dog can bite before being put down.
Nebraska requires every dog to be vaccinated against rabies. Section 71-4402 says every domestic animal in the state, which includes dogs, “shall be vaccinated against rabies with a licensed vaccine,” and an unvaccinated dog found off its owner’s premises must be impounded. So a biting dog’s vaccination record should exist.
After a bite, section 71-4406 says any domestic animal that has bitten a person or broken the skin “shall be subjected to post-incident management” under rules of the Department of Health and Human Services. The department’s rabies investigation guideline, updated in June 2025, says a healthy owned dog that bites should be confined and observed daily for 10 days regardless of vaccination status, with day 0 being the day of the bite. Local authorities decide where the dog is held, a stray whose owner cannot be found within 72 hours must be tested, and an owner who refuses to cooperate faces a seizure order.
Reporting is local. Nebraska’s rabies control authority is the county, township, city, or village health and law enforcement officials, so call animal control or the local health department where the bite happened. Report the bite: the department’s guideline says any bite report requires prompt investigation by the local health department, and the report creates an official record. Here is what happens after a dog bite is reported.
Rabies in Nebraska lives mainly in wildlife. According to the department’s guideline, of 1,545 animals tested in 2019, 21 were positive: 18 bats and 3 skunks. Whether you need shots is a decision for your doctor and the health department. The department’s rabies page has its guidance and contacts. If the dog’s shots were not current, read about being bitten by an unvaccinated dog.
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. That is an insurance claim average across every claim, large and small. It is not a settlement value and does not predict any one case.
What actually moves the number in a Nebraska case:
Our overview of dog bite settlement amounts explains how injury levels affect value, and the dog bite settlement calculator gives a rough sense of ranges.
Compensation for a dog bite may come from the liability section of the owner’s homeowners or renters policy rather than from the owner personally. The Nebraska Department of Insurance tells homeowners that if a household member’s dog “gets out and bites the neighbor, you want to be sure your policy provides adequate liability coverage,” and that the insurer should know who lives in the home and whether new pets have arrived.
Read the wording, because policy language decides real Nebraska cases. In Van Kleek, the owners’ Farmers homeowners policy defined an insured to include any person “legally responsible” for covered animals. The Nebraska Supreme Court held that a dog sitter who fed and watered the dog and let it out was legally responsible for it, so she counted as an insured, and the policy’s exclusion for injuries to insureds blocked her claim. That outcome turned on that policy’s words, and a different policy may come out differently.
A few practical Nebraska points:
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 Nebraska is a state where the first decisions shape the whole case. Was it a bite, so that strict liability applies, or a knock-down that has to be proved as negligence? Was the victim anywhere a jury might call trespassing? Who besides the owner had the dog, and what did the landlord know? Is a city or county involved, starting a one-year clock? We work through those questions at the start, because the answers decide which claims to bring and who to bring them against.
We gather the animal control file, the observation record, prior complaints, and any dangerous dog notice, find every policy that might apply and read its wording, and deal with the insurer so that you do not have to.
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 Nebraska, including Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Grand Island, and Kearney. 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.
No. Under section 54-601, the owner of a dog that bites anyone other than a trespasser is liable for the damages without any proof that the dog had bitten before or that the owner knew it was dangerous. The Nebraska Supreme Court has called this strict liability. The dog's history still matters, because it supports a separate common law or negligence claim if the statute does not fit.
Not under the strict liability statute. The Nebraska Supreme Court has held that the statute's non-bite words cover aggressive acts aimed at the person, not playful or mischievous ones, so a friendly dog knocking you down falls outside it. You may still have a negligence claim if the owner or keeper failed to use reasonable care, for example by letting a large dog loose where a leash rule applied. Plead that claim from the start.
Possibly. The owner may argue your child was a trespasser, since the Nebraska Supreme Court has said reaching over a boundary fence can be a trespass. But trespass requires an intentional act, and a jury decides whether a child that age could form that intent. Even if the child is found to be a trespasser, a common law claim remains if the owner knew the dog was vicious.
Generally four years from the bite for an adult. A child's four years do not start until age 21, so the deadline is usually the twenty-fifth birthday, though a parent's own claim for medical bills does not get that extra time. If a city, county, or other political subdivision is involved, you must present a written claim within one year, and a state agency claim must be made in writing within two years.
It depends on the policy. In Van Kleek v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, a sitter who fed, watered, and let out the owner's dog was found legally responsible for it, which made her an insured under the owner's homeowners policy, and the policy excluded injuries to insureds. Other policies use different wording, so have a lawyer read the actual policy before you give up on the claim.
Only in limited situations. Nebraska's strict liability statute applies to the dog's owner, not the property owner. A landlord can be liable in negligence only with actual knowledge of the dog's dangerous propensities, combined with either renting to the owner anyway or having the power under the lease to control the dog and failing to use it. Prior complaints and the lease terms usually decide these cases.
No. The Nebraska Supreme Court has held that punitive damages violate the state constitution and are not allowed in Nebraska. An owner who ignored warnings about a vicious dog still pays full compensation for medical bills, lost income, pain, and disfigurement, and that conduct can help prove the claim, but there is no added award meant to punish.
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