Recovering for a Dog Bite Injury Under Texas Law

Attorney Answer

Not automatically. Texas has no statute that makes a dog owner liable simply because the dog bit someone, so a claim generally has to show either that the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous, or that the owner handled the dog carelessly. An injury to the face with sutures is serious, and a claim like this can be worth pursuing — but the legal question is about the owner's knowledge and conduct, not just about the bite.

People are often told that Texas has a dog-bite law. It has a dog chapter, but it works differently than that. Tex. Health & Safety Code § 822.005 creates a criminal offense in narrow circumstances involving an unprovoked attack off the owner's property causing serious bodily injury or death, or an owner who knows the dog has been determined to be a dangerous dog. Section 822.041(2) defines a dangerous dog, and § 822.042(a) requires the owner of one to register the animal, restrain it, and carry $100,000 in liability coverage or other financial responsibility. Those provisions are criminal and regulatory. They are not a civil strict-liability rule, though a dangerous-dog determination or the required coverage can matter a great deal in practice.

The civil rule comes from the Texas Supreme Court. In Marshall v. Ranne, 511 S.W.2d 255 (Tex. 1974), the court held that an owner is strictly liable for injuries caused by an animal the owner knows or should know is vicious. It also held that the injured person's ordinary contributory negligence is not a defense to that strict-liability claim, though a true voluntary assumption of a known risk is. Where the animal is not shown to be vicious, the claim proceeds instead on ordinary negligence — whether the owner used reasonable care in keeping and handling the dog.

So the practical question in your case is what the owner knew. Had the dog bitten, snapped, or lunged at anyone before? Was it kept muzzled, crated, or behind a sign? Did anyone warn you? Answers like those move a claim from the negligence track to the stronger strict-liability track.

If the claim is a negligence claim, Texas's fault statute applies to your side too. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001 bars a claimant whose percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent from recovering anything, and § 33.012(a) requires the court to reduce damages by a percentage equal to the claimant's own percentage of responsibility.

What you can do

1. Get complete copies of your medical records and bills, including the emergency visit and the suture repair, and keep going to any follow-up care for the scarring.

2. Photograph your face now and at intervals as it heals. Scarring changes, and there is no way to recreate the early images later.

3. Ask your city or county animal-control office for any prior reports or complaints about this dog, and for the bite report if one was made. Requesting agency records is something you can do yourself.

4. Preserve your text messages and any other written exchanges with the owner about the dog, before or after the bite. Do not delete anything.

5. Find out whether the owner has homeowner's or renter's insurance, since that is usually where payment for a bite claim comes from.

6. Talk to a Texas attorney about which theory fits your facts before you give a recorded statement to any insurer or accept any offer.

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

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) requires a personal-injury suit to be brought not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. Exactly when that period ends depends on your facts, so have a Texas attorney review the dates rather than counting from a page like this.