Dog Bite Law |
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Minnesota is a strict liability state. |
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Overview
The Minnesota dog bite statute is as follows:
Minnesota courts have applied the statute in a manner most favorable to dog bite victims. It has been interpreted as an absolute, strict liability statute. Comparative fault is not permitted as a defense. Seim v. Garavalia (Minn. 1981), 306 N.W.2d 806, 810; Lewellin v. Huber, 465 N.W.2d 62 (MI 1991). As the court stated in Lewellin:
The use of the phrase "attacks or injures" in the Minnesota dog bite statute raised an interesting issue in Lewellin v. Huber, 465 N.W.2d 62 (MI 1991). A dog was loose inside a car, and wanted to get into the front seat. The driver was distracted, lost control of her vehicle, and it ran over a child who was laying in a ditch beside the road. The driver was also the dog owner. The family of the child brought a claim against the driver based upon the dog bite statute. The legal question was whether the dog bite statute applied, the focus being the law's use of the words "attack and injure." Construing just the word "attack," the court stated, "[w]hen a dog attacks, it bites; when it bites a person, it attacks." Lewellin v. Huber, 465 N.W.2d 62 (MI 1991). The court reasoned that, "[t]hough there may be causation in fact here, this chain of events is too attenuated to constitute legal causation for the radical kind of liability that the statute imposes." The court held that there was insufficient causation to impose strict liability under the dog bite statute, but that the victim's family was free to assert a negligence claim against the driver of the car. Provocation is the owner's defense to liability. Grams v. Howard's O.K. Hardware Co., 446 N.W.2d 687, 689 (Minn. App. 1989), pet. for rev. denied (Minn. Dec. 15, 1989). Whether the dog was provoked is an issue of fact. Bailey v. Morris, 323 N.W.2d 785, 787 (Minn. 1982). In Grams, a 22-month-old child was bitten by a dog having hip displasia, a painful hip condition which is undetectable without seeing the dog walk. The child had petted the dog without incident, but later the same day, the child was bitten when she placed her arms around the dog's neck. The court of appeals held that provocation did not exist as a matter of law upon finding: (1) the owner knew the dog was in pain; (2) the pain was not apparent to observers; (3) the child was only 22 months old and there was no evidence indicating the child appreciated the danger in approaching the dog; and (4) there was no evidence demonstrating the child's act was anything other than inadvertent. The opposite conclusion was reached, and provocation was properly decided by the jury, where the dog was healthy, the child 4 years old, and the child tried to sit on the dog while it was sleeping. Erickson v. Delano, 458 N.W.2d 172 (MI Ct. of App., 1990). Negligence and scienterTwo of the basic causes of action in dog bite cases are negligence and scienter. The scienter cause of action is the traditional, common law legal ground for holding the owner of a domestic animal liable for harm caused by that animal. Under the common law, liability for a domestic animal rests upon its owner's knowledge (in Latin, "scienter") that the animal possessed the dangerous propensity that caused injury in the present case. Negligence is a proper, additional ground for liability in Minnesota. Lewellin v. Huber, 465 N.W.2d 62 (MI 1991). The Lewellin court stated:
In dog-bite actions predicated on negligence, the owner has a duty to act only when on notice of the dog's dangerous propensity. Harris v. Breezy Point Lodge, 238 Minn. 322, 325-26, 56 N.W.2d 655, 658 (1953); see C.A.U. v. R.L.,438 N.W.2d 441, 443 (Minn. App. 1989) (essential element in determining duty is actual or imputed knowledge of facts); Macho v. Mahowald, 374 N.W.2d 312, 314 (Minn. App. 1985) (liability for injuries caused by animal when notice of such propensities would put a reasonable person on guard), pet. for rev. denied (Minn. Nov. 4, 1985). Assumption of the riskAssumption of the risk is a defense under the statute. It has been held that a dog groomer, who voluntarily accepts temporary responsibility for care of a dog and exhibits basic attributes of ownership, is the keeper of the dog for purposes of secondary ownership under Minn. Stat. section 347.22 (2004), the dog-bite statute, and therefore cannot recover. Carlson v. Friday, 694 N.W.2d 828 (Minn.App. 2005).
Litigation forms and other materials for attorneys
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The Minnesota dog
bite law is one of the most favorable to dog bite victims. It
covers bites and other injuries, applies not only to the owner
of the attacking dog but also the person who harbors or keeps the dog, and is not subject to the defense of comparative negligence. To learn more about these topics generally in the field of dog bite law, see 
