California Dog Attack Liability, Dog Bites Liability

What if the owner of the dog that bit you states he’s not the owner of the dog, but a keeper?

California provides for strict liability to those who are bitten by a dog. This means the dog owner is legally liable for all injuries caused by his/her dog. If somebody tells you they’re not the owner of the dog, but yet they have housed, cared, and fed the dog for years, we will prove that they are the owners under California law. What we do to resolve the issue is to file a lawsuit against the so-called keeper of the dog under the California dog bite statute and allege negligence along with our strict dog bite strict liability claims so that if the court holds that the keeper is not the owner, then we will prove that the keeper was negligent in allowing the dog to bite our client.

As California dog bite lawyers we have proven that one need not be the owner of the dog to be liable as long as we allege negligence and intentional acts and/or omission claims. Remember, we are experts in proving that people have a duty to use due care to avoid injury to others and that they will be held liable if their careless conduct injures other people. Accordingly, people responsible for having control over a dog, whether keepers, guardians, caretakers, co-owners, renters, or landlords, may be held liable for the dog bites due to their failure to properly care for or contain the dog or not provide warnings of the danger presented by the dog when such danger is known or should have been known. Liability has been proven to attach to not only the owner of a dog, but to the keeper as well, if the keeper knew or should have had knowledge of the viciousness of the dog. We have obtained recovery in these types of cases.

In previous cases, we have proven that the keepers (or owner’s) negligence or intentional acts that result in harm can be supported by various legal theories. We have proven that the public policy to have them held responsible and to provide compensation for dog bite victims is a strong motivation to minimize the risk of dog bites.