Defending a Michigan Dog-Scratch Lawsuit Involving a Neighbor's Child

Attorney Answer

The most urgent thing is not the dog law — it is the answer deadline. If you have been served with a summons and complaint, you have a short, fixed window to file a written answer, and missing it lets your neighbor take a default judgment without a single one of your defenses ever being heard.

The second most urgent thing: call your homeowner's or renter's insurance today. Most policies cover dog-related injury claims and owe you a defense attorney at no cost, and late notice can cost you that coverage.

Now the law. MCL 287.351(1) provides: "If a dog bites a person, without provocation while the person is on public property, or lawfully on private property, including the property of the owner of the dog, the owner of the dog shall be liable for any damages suffered by the person bitten, regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner's knowledge of such viciousness." Three things follow from that text and they all matter to you.

First, the statute reaches bites. If the police report is accurate that this was a scratch with no puncture wound, the statutory claim may not fit the facts at all. That does not end the lawsuit — your neighbor can still plead ordinary negligence — but it is a very different case, decided under different rules.

Second, subsection (2) defines when a person is lawfully on private property; invitees and licensees qualify, and a trespasser cannot maintain a statutory claim. A child who was told to go home and then came back into your yard uninvited may not have been lawfully there. That is an independent defense, separate from provocation.

Third, provocation is the statute's only defense — and Michigan case law makes that cut both ways. Hill v. Sacka, 256 Mich. App. 443 (2003), holds that liability under MCL 287.351 is absolute absent provocation and that Michigan's comparative-fault statutes do not apply to a statutory dog-bite claim. That part is bad news for you: on a statutory claim you cannot shave the damages by pointing to the child's carelessness or the parents' failure to supervise. In Hill the injured child's father was found 75% negligent and it did not reduce the award. Fault matters only insofar as it bears on provocation. Hill does confirm that a child can provoke a dog, and it expressly left open whether provocation requires an intentional act or whether unintentional conduct suffices.

Koivisto v. Davis, 277 Mich. App. 492 (2008), answers that open question in a way that helps you. It describes the statute as creating "an almost absolute liability" except where the dog was provoked, and holds that provocation does not turn on the actor's intent but on the nature of the act and its relationship to the outcome — so a child's teasing can be provocation even if the child meant no harm. But Koivisto carries a warning for your facts too: the defense presupposes that the dog was not already in a provoked state, and a person's response to a dog that is already behaving viciously or already attacking is not provocation as a matter of law. You have said this same child had been teasing the dog repeatedly and had been sent home earlier that day. Expect the other side to argue the dog was already worked up. Whether there was provocation is usually a question for the jury on the circumstances of the case.

What you can do

1. Find the summons and read the date you were served and the deadline printed on it. If that date is close, treat today as your deadline. 2. Notify your homeowner's or renter's insurer immediately, in writing, and send them the complaint. This is the highest-value step in this list. 3. Make sure an answer is filed before the deadline — by the lawyer your insurer assigns, or by one you retain. Do not call the neighbor instead of answering. 4. Get a certified copy of the police report and the responding officer's name. 5. Write down, with dates and times, every prior instance of these children teasing the dog, every time you told them to stop, and the fact that you sent the child home that day. Name anyone who saw or heard it. 6. Photograph the yard, the tie-out and where the dog was restrained, the fence and gate, and the route the child would have taken to get in. 7. Preserve texts or messages with the neighbor, and pull any doorbell or security video from that day before it overwrites. 8. Do not discuss the case with the neighbor, and do not post about it anywhere.

⏱ Time limits apply. Michigan's court rules give a defendant a short, fixed period after service to file an answer, and the deadline is stated on the summons you were served with. It depends on how and when you were served, so read the summons itself and, if there is any doubt, have a lawyer read it today. Do not calculate it yourself.