Collecting a Dog Bite Judgment Beyond Insurance Limits

Attorney Answer

A judgment can reach a home in California, but the homestead exemption comes off the equity first, and on a great many houses that leaves nothing for a creditor to take. So: yes in principle, often not in practice — and the more productive question is usually whether the insurer can be made to pay more than the policy limit rather than whether the house can be sold.

Start with liability, because it drives the rest. Cal. Civ. Code § 3342(a) provides: "The owner of any dog is liable for the damages suffered by any person who is bitten by the dog while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, including the property of the owner of the dog, regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner's knowledge of such viciousness." That is strict liability. There is no need to prove a prior bite or that the owner was careless. The conditions that matter are that a bite occurred and that the bitten person was in a public place, or lawfully in a private one.

Collecting is a separate stage from winning, and it is where the limited policy bites. A money judgment is enforced against the losing party's property, and California exempts part of that property from creditors. For a home, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 704.730 sets the exemption at the greater of the countywide median sale price for a single-family home in the prior calendar year, capped at $600,000, or $300,000, and subdivision (b) adjusts those figures annually for inflation. That amount is protected before a creditor sees a dollar, and it is measured against equity — what is left after the mortgage — not against the sale price. A vehicle carries its own $7,500 exemption under Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 704.010. Whether a lien on this particular house would ever produce money is therefore an arithmetic question about that owner's equity, and it should be answered before anyone spends money chasing it.

That is why the insurance side is usually the better lever. An insurer that unreasonably refuses a reasonable opportunity to settle within its policy limits can be exposed for the judgment above those limits — a rule that comes from the courts rather than from the policy. Comunale v. Traders & General Ins. Co., 50 Cal. 2d 654 (1958), held that an insurer's duty of good faith requires it to give the insured's interest in settling within the limits proper weight, and that an insurer which fails to do so may answer for the excess judgment. That exposure belongs to the insurer and to the insured, not to the injured person directly, but it is the practical reason a small policy is not always the ceiling on a case.

What you can do

1. Find out the actual policy limits and whether any other coverage exists — a homeowner's policy, a renter's policy, an umbrella policy, or a policy held by another adult in the household. More than one policy responds to dog bites more often than people expect.

2. Ask the attorney handling the case whether a written settlement demand within the policy limits has been made, and when. That step is what puts an insurer to its choice.

3. Ask a local attorney about the owner's collectible assets before pursuing them: equity in the home after the mortgage, whether it is the owner's residence, and what the exemptions leave.

4. Ask a local attorney about recording a lien and about any other enforcement step. Those are court filings with their own rules and their own risks, and they are not do-it-yourself moves.

5. Keep documenting the injury — treatment records, bills, photographs of the wound and any scarring over time, and any work missed. Documented damages are what move an insurer off a low number.

6. Do not sign a release for the policy limits until someone has looked at whether anything else is collectible. Under Cal. Civ. Code § 1541, a written release extinguishes the obligation, and it will generally end the claim against the owner personally as well as against the insurer.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A dog-bite injury claim runs on the two years given by Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1, and with a suit already on file the deadlines that govern now are the ones inside the case — and later, the separate periods that apply to enforcing a judgment. Which dates control depends on your facts and on when each period started, so have a local attorney check them against your file rather than assuming.