Dog Bite Injury Lawyer in Sacramento, CA Injuries, Evidence and Liability

How you know this is a strict liability claim

California Civil Code section 3342 makes the owner of a dog answerable for damages when the dog bites a person who is in a public place or lawfully on private property, and it says out loud that the dog's earlier viciousness and the owner's knowledge of it change nothing. That is the whole point of the section: no earlier bite to prove, no loose latch to prove, no careless handler to prove. The pattern jury instruction built on it, CACI No. 463, breaks the claim into ownership of the dog, a bite, lawful presence, harm, and the dog as a substantial factor in that harm. Appellate law adds a detail people get wrong constantly: the skin need not break for the section to apply.

Who the section quietly leaves out

Lawful presence is a defined term, not a general sense of being allowed to be somewhere. The section counts a person who was there on the owner's express or implied invitation, or who was performing a duty imposed by state law or by federal postal regulation. That is why a letter carrier bitten on a Land Park porch sits inside the rule and someone who stepped over a fence sits outside it. California courts have also held that veterinary staff and commercial kennel workers assume the risk of being bitten as part of the job, so the strict liability route is closed to them. Subdivisions (b) through (d) carve out a public agency using a dog in police or military work in listed situations, but only where the agency adopted a written policy on that use. The carve-out is switched off for a bystander who had no part in whatever prompted the dog.

The deadline, and the shorter one nobody expects

An ordinary claim against a private dog owner runs on Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1: two years for injury caused by another's wrongful act or neglect. A public entity changes the arithmetic completely. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim for personal injury to be presented within six months of accrual, and Government Code section 945.6 then allows only six months from the mailing of a written rejection to get a suit on file. That matters because the bite may have happened in a city park, at a transit stop, on a school campus, or at a property a public agency manages. Sort out whether an entity is involved in the first weeks, not the twentieth month.

The first week, and which agency has your file

Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations, section 2606, requires bites from rabies-susceptible mammals to be reported to the local health officer whether or not rabies is suspected, and state public health has declared every one of California's 58 counties a rabies area every year for decades. Which office ends up holding the file depends on the address rather than the postmark. The city shelter on Front Street covers addresses inside Sacramento, the county department on Bradshaw Road covers the unincorporated county, and Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom, and Rancho Cordova each run their own animal control. Both the county and the city hold a biting dog for ten days from the date of the bite, and the county bills the owner for each day of that confinement. Ask for the case number, the officer's name, and copies of anything served on the owner.

The mistake that costs the case

Giving a narrative before the medical record exists. A deep puncture over a knuckle or a tendon often looks minor on day one and declares itself as an infection or a lasting range-of-motion problem two weeks later, and a statement recorded on day three becomes the version the file treats as true. The second common error is tidying up: discarding torn clothing, deleting texts with the owner, or letting doorbell and lobby video age past its retention window.

What the other side does

California is a pure comparative fault state, and contributory negligence and assumption of risk remain available defenses in a section 3342 action. So the questions come back as provocation, teasing, reaching over a fence line, ignoring a posted warning, feeding a strange dog, or stepping into a yard uninvited. Civil Code section 1431.2 also splits noneconomic damages among defendants severally, in proportion to each one's share of fault, which is why the identity and number of defendants gets argued long before any number does.

After you make contact, and how the fee rule works

The useful first exchange is documentary: date, address, case number, treatment so far, dog ownership, and any public entity in the facts. California regulates the fee arrangement instead of capping it. Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(a) prohibits an unconscionable or illegal fee and 1.5(b) lists thirteen factors for measuring one, including the fee against the value of the work actually performed. Business and Professions Code section 6147 requires a percentage-of-recovery agreement to be in writing, with a signed duplicate handed to the client. It must state the rate, explain how costs hit both the fee and the client's share, and say in plain terms that the rate is not set by law and is negotiable. Rule 1.5(c)(2) bars percentage arrangements in criminal defense entirely, which is one reason they are standard on the injury side and nowhere else.