Dog bites in Charlotte, North Carolina
Being attacked by a dog can be a horrific experience that most likely will change you or a loved ones life forever. Not only does an attack leave a victim with physical injuries, but many individuals experience post traumatic trauma that leads to emotional and psychological damage as well.
If you are the victim of a Dog Bite in Charlotte North Carolina, a huge factor will be whether or not the owner of the attacking Dog is properly insured through some type of rental or home owners insurance. Dealing with multiple insurance companies and opposing attorneys can become a extremely burdensome and complex.
We understand the necessity to not only treat the current victim, but obtain a settlement that will be able to pay for additional plastic surgery and psychological treatment. Sheehan in Charlotte, North Carolina and speak with a Dog Bite Attorney today.
North Carolina gives a dog bite victim three separate routes to liability
North Carolina has no single statute making every dog owner automatically liable for a bite. Three routes exist, and a claim commonly pleads more than one. The first is strict liability under G.S. 67-4.4, which makes the owner of a “dangerous dog” strictly liable in civil damages for any injuries or property damage the dog inflicts on a person, that person’s property or another animal. Everything on that route turns on whether the animal answers the statutory description in G.S. 67-4.1, and that description is more particular than the everyday phrase suggests.
The second route is the common law rule stated in Sellers v. Morris (1951): an owner or keeper is liable where the animal had a vicious propensity and the owner knew or should have known of it. The third is ordinary negligence, and it does not depend on any history of viciousness. The North Carolina pattern instruction for domestic animals asks whether the defendant knew or should have known, from the past conduct of the animal or from the general propensities of that type of animal, that injury or damage to others was likely unless the animal was confined or restrained (N.C.P.I.–Civil 812.03). Williams v. Tysinger (1991), a case about a horse rather than a dog, is the authority usually cited for the proposition that knowledge of a vicious propensity is not essential where the owner otherwise failed to use ordinary care.
A further statutory duty sits in G.S. 67-12: no person may allow his or her own dog over six months old to run at large in the nighttime unaccompanied by the owner, by some member of the owner’s family, or by some other person acting with the owner’s permission. The consequences attach only to a person who intentionally, knowingly and wilfully violates the section — that person is guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor and is also liable in damages to any person injured or suffering loss to property or chattels. Two things follow. The statute creates the civil claim itself, so a claim under it does not need to be dressed up as negligence per se. But it also carries a heightened fault standard, and proving only that the dog was out after dark will not satisfy it.
The “dangerous dog” label in G.S. 67-4.1 is narrower than it sounds
Strict liability under G.S. 67-4.4 depends on the definitions in G.S. 67-4.1, and a dog reaches the dangerous dog definition by either of two quite different paths. Under G.S. 67-4.1(a)(1)a.1, a dog that without provocation has killed or inflicted severe injury on a person is a dangerous dog, and nothing further is required — no hearing, no designation, no earlier incident. Under a.2, a dog is also a dangerous dog where the person or Board designated by the county or municipal authority responsible for animal control determines it to be potentially dangerous. Separately, G.S. 67-4.1(a)(1)b covers any dog owned or harbored primarily or in part for the purpose of dog fighting, and any dog trained for dog fighting. “Severe injury” carries its own definition in G.S. 67-4.1(a)(5): any physical injury that results in broken bones or disfiguring lacerations or required cosmetic surgery or hospitalization.
The potentially dangerous route in G.S. 67-4.1(a)(2) rests on a determination that the dog has done one of three things, and the three are alternatives rather than one compound test. The first is inflicting a bite on a person that resulted in broken bones or disfiguring lacerations, or required cosmetic surgery or hospitalization — a bite that broke a bone qualifies whether or not surgery or a hospital admission followed. The second is killing or inflicting severe injury on a domestic animal when not on the owner’s real property. The third is approaching a person when not on the owner’s real property in a vicious or terrorizing manner in an apparent attitude of attack. “Owner’s real property” is itself defined, in G.S. 67-4.1(a)(4), as real property owned or leased by the owner of the dog, and it does not include any public right-of-way or a common area of a condominium, apartment complex or townhouse development — so an incident in the shared courtyard of an apartment complex counts as off the owner’s property.
The determination procedure is set out in G.S. 67-4.1(c). The animal control authority designates a person or Board to decide when a dog is potentially dangerous, and a separate Board to hear any appeal. The owner must be notified in writing, with the reasons for the determination, before the dog may be considered potentially dangerous under the Article. The owner may appeal by filing written objections with the appellate Board within three days; the appellate Board schedules a hearing within ten days of the filing; and an appeal from its final decision is taken by filing notice of appeal and a petition for review within ten days of that decision, to be heard de novo before a superior court judge sitting in the county where the appellate Board is located.
G.S. 67-4.1(b) takes the whole Article out of play in four situations: a dog being used by a law enforcement officer to carry out official duties; a dog being used in a lawful hunt; a dog whose damage was done to a domestic animal while the dog was working as a hunting, herding or predator control dog in the circumstances the subsection describes; and a dog where the injury was sustained by a person who, at the time, was committing a wilful trespass or other tort, was tormenting, abusing or assaulting the dog, had tormented, abused or assaulted the dog, or was committing or attempting to commit a crime. Where the Article does apply, G.S. 67-4.2(a) makes it unlawful for an owner to leave a dangerous dog unattended on the owner’s real property unless the dog is confined indoors, in a securely enclosed and locked pen, or in another structure designed to restrain it, and unlawful to permit the dog beyond that property unless it is leashed and muzzled, or otherwise securely restrained and muzzled — the muzzle is required under either alternative. Violation of that section is a Class 3 misdemeanor under G.S. 67-4.2(c). Under G.S. 67-4.3, the owner of a dangerous dog that attacks a person and causes physical injuries requiring medical treatment in excess of one hundred dollars ($100.00) is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. G.S. 67-4.5 leaves cities and counties free to run their own dangerous dog programs.
Whether strict liability or negligence carries the claim depends on the injury
It is often assumed that strict liability cannot be reached until some authority has labeled the dog, and that assumption is wrong in exactly the case that arrives first. Where the dog has without provocation killed or inflicted severe injury on a person — broken bones, disfiguring lacerations, cosmetic surgery or hospitalization — it is a dangerous dog under G.S. 67-4.1(a)(1)a.1 on the strength of that attack alone, and G.S. 67-4.4 strict liability is in play with no administrative determination behind it. The same is true where the dog has already been determined potentially dangerous through the other path. It is where the injury falls short of the statutory description, and no determination has been made, that the claim has to proceed on negligence and on what the owner knew.
That remains the larger group of cases, and in it the evidence of the owner’s knowledge does the work. The file depends on history: earlier complaints to animal control, earlier bite reports, containment orders, warning signs on the fence, veterinary records, and what neighbors have observed. Photographs of the enclosure, the gate and the latch matter as much as photographs of the wound.
Violation of a statute enacted for the safety of the public is negligence per se in North Carolina, provided the injured person is within the class the statute was meant to protect and the violation was a proximate cause of the injury. That doctrine gives independent weight to a General Statute such as G.S. 67-12. A local ordinance is ordinarily treated differently, as evidence of negligence rather than as negligence per se, but the Mecklenburg ordinance addresses the point itself: Section 3-34 lists Section 3-71 (restraint of animals) among the sections imposing a public duty designed to promote the safety of other persons, and provides that a violation of any of them is negligence per se and could give rise to recovery of damages for personal injuries in a civil action. Section 3-71 of the Mecklenburg County animal control ordinance, enforced by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Animal Care & Control, makes it unlawful to keep a dog, whether on or off the owner’s premises, unless the animal is under sufficient physical restraint such as a leash, cage or similar effective device, or is within a vehicle, or is adequately contained by a fence on the premises or other secure enclosure, subject to the exceptions the ordinance sets out.
Contributory negligence and provocation decide a large share of these claims
In North Carolina a negligence-based dog bite claim is barred completely if the injured person was negligent to any degree and that negligence was a proximate cause of the injury. There is no apportionment. The defense is built from the injured person’s own conduct: reaching over a fence, approaching a chained dog, entering a yard without permission, or ignoring a posted warning.
The rule works differently for children. A child under seven is conclusively presumed incapable of contributory negligence. Between seven and fourteen the presumption of incapacity is rebuttable, and the question is whether a child of that age would ordinarily have had the discretion, judgment and mental capacity to discern and appreciate the danger; even a child found capable is held only to the care a reasonably careful child of the same age, discretion, knowledge, experience and capacity would exercise. A child who has reached fourteen is presumed to have sufficient capacity to be sensible of danger and the power to avoid it. These are the rules the North Carolina pattern jury instructions apply (N.C.P.I.–Civil 104.25).
Where the claim rests on strict liability under G.S. 67-4.4, the injured person’s own care is not weighed in the same way. Provocation and trespass enter through the statute itself — through the words “without provocation” in the definition of a dangerous dog, and through the exemptions in G.S. 67-4.1(b), which lift the Article altogether where the person injured was committing a wilful trespass or another tort, was tormenting, abusing or assaulting the dog, or was committing or attempting to commit a crime. Contributory negligence is also no defense to wilful or wanton conduct.
The dog’s owner is not always the only party liable
In North Carolina a landlord can be liable for a tenant’s dog without owning or keeping it. In Holcomb v. Colonial Associates (2004) the Supreme Court held that a landlord who knew of the animals’ dangerous behavior and retained contractual control — there, a lease term requiring the tenant to remove pets on written notice — could be found negligent when the dogs injured a visitor. The analysis is notice and control, not ownership, and it is worth obtaining the lease early for that reason.
Others can be defendants as well: a person who harbors or keeps the dog without owning it, a property management company, a boarding kennel or a sitter with custody at the time, or an employer whose handler was acting in the course of employment. Each of those turns on that party’s own conduct rather than on the owner’s.
Where the person bitten was working — a postal carrier, delivery driver, utility worker, meter reader or home health aide — the Workers’ Compensation Act is the exclusive remedy against the employer under G.S. 97-10.1 where employer and employee are subject to and have complied with the Act. G.S. 97-10.2 preserves the claim against the dog’s owner or the property owner. The employer and its carrier then hold a lien on that third-party recovery under G.S. 97-10.2(f) and (h), and G.S. 97-10.2(j) allows a party to apply to a superior court judge to determine the amount, if any, of that lien.
Homeowner’s and renter’s liability insurance is usually the source of any recovery
In North Carolina a dog bite recovery is normally paid by a homeowner’s, renter’s or landlord’s liability policy rather than by the owner personally. Coverage is not uniform. Some policies exclude particular breeds, some exclude animal liability altogether, some impose a sub-limit for animal claims, and some exclude an animal that has already been the subject of a claim.
Where the dog’s owner rents, the tenant’s policy and the landlord’s policy are separate sources, and the landlord’s responds only if the landlord is itself liable on the notice and control analysis in Holcomb. Where no policy responds, the practical question becomes whether there are assets to satisfy a judgment.
Adjusters concentrate on the points a defense would raise: whether the dog meets the dangerous dog definition in G.S. 67-4.1, whether any determination or prior incident is documented, whether the animal was provoked, and whether the person bitten had permission to be where they were. Answering those questions with records rather than recollection is the substance of the pre-suit work.
The deadline, the rabies reporting rules, and what the claim can cover
A North Carolina dog bite claim must be filed within three years under G.S. 1-52(16), which also provides that the cause of action does not accrue until the bodily harm becomes apparent or ought reasonably to have become apparent to the claimant. If the person bitten was under eighteen when the claim accrued, G.S. 1-17(a) allows the action to be brought within the time limited in the subchapter — here three years — after the disability of minority is removed. Where an attack causes death, the action belongs to the personal representative or collector of the decedent under G.S. 28A-18-2, and G.S. 1-53(4) sets a two-year period running from the date of death.
Separate public health rules generate a record close to the event. Under G.S. 130A-196, when a person is bitten by an animal required to be vaccinated against rabies under G.S. 130A-185 — a dog, cat or ferret — the person bitten, or the parent, guardian or person standing in loco parentis, and the person owning the animal or in control or possession of it, must notify the local health director immediately and give the names and addresses involved. The animal is then confined for ten days in a place the local health director designates, although the director may, after reviewing the circumstances of the particular case, allow the owner to confine it on the owner’s property. A physician who attends a person bitten by an animal known to be a potential carrier of rabies reports the incident to the local health director within twenty-four hours. An owner who fails to confine an animal in accordance with the health director’s instructions is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor, and the director may order the animal seized and confined for ten days at the owner’s expense.
A dog bite claim can cover medical treatment, future surgery including scar revision, psychological treatment, lost earnings, permanent scarring and disfigurement, and pain and suffering. Rule 414 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence (G.S. 8C-1) limits evidence of past medical expenses to the amounts actually paid to satisfy bills that have been satisfied, whatever the source of payment, and the amounts actually necessary to satisfy bills incurred but not yet satisfied. Punitive damages are available only where the claimant proves liability for compensatory damages and, by clear and convincing evidence, an aggravating factor related to the injury — fraud, malice, or wilful or wanton conduct — under G.S. 1D-15; any award is capped by G.S. 1D-25 at three times the compensatory damages or two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000), whichever is greater, with the trial court reducing anything above the cap. Medical provider liens under G.S. 44-49 are limited by G.S. 44-50, which provides that the lien shall in no case, exclusive of attorney’s fees, exceed fifty per cent of the amount of damages recovered.
How a Mecklenburg County dog bite case proceeds
Most North Carolina dog bite claims are presented to the liability insurer before suit, with medical records, photographs of the injuries at each stage of healing, the animal control file and the rabies confinement record. If the claim does not resolve, suit is filed — for an attack in Charlotte, normally in Mecklenburg County. Under G.S. 7A-243 the district court division is the proper division for the trial of a civil action in which the amount in controversy is twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or less, and the superior court division above that; the statute speaks of the proper division rather than of the court’s jurisdiction.
The answer will normally plead contributory negligence, so discovery is aimed at the moments before the bite as much as at the dog’s history. Mediation is likely but not automatic: under G.S. 7A-38.1(e) the senior resident superior court judge of a participating district may order a mediated settlement conference for a superior court civil action pending in the district, and may by local rule order all cases not otherwise exempted to a conference. Where a conference is ordered, G.S. 7A-38.1(f) requires the parties and their attorneys to attend unless excused. Scarring cases are often held open until treating surgeons can say whether revision surgery is likely, because the permanence of a scar is a large part of what is being valued.
Common questions
Does North Carolina have a one-bite rule for dogs?
Partly, and less than the phrase suggests. North Carolina has no general strict liability statute covering every dog, so many claims do depend on showing that the animal had a vicious propensity the owner knew or should have known about, as in Sellers v. Morris (1951). But a bite history is not always needed. Under G.S. 67-4.1(a)(1)a.1 a dog that without provocation has killed or inflicted severe injury on a person is a dangerous dog on the strength of that attack alone, which brings the strict liability in G.S. 67-4.4 into play with no prior incident and no official determination. An ordinary negligence claim can also succeed with no bite history at all.
How long do I have to bring a dog bite claim in North Carolina?
Three years under G.S. 1-52(16), which provides that the cause of action does not accrue until the bodily harm becomes apparent or ought reasonably to have become apparent. If the person bitten was under eighteen when the claim accrued, G.S. 1-17(a) allows the action to be brought within the time limited in the subchapter — three years for a personal injury claim — after the disability of minority is removed. Where an attack causes death, the claim belongs to the personal representative or collector of the estate under G.S. 28A-18-2 and carries a two-year period from the date of death under G.S. 1-53(4).
Can I recover if the dog had never bitten anyone before?
Often, yes. A first bite defeats a claim resting only on the owner’s knowledge of a vicious propensity, but it does not defeat an ordinary negligence claim; Williams v. Tysinger (1991), a horse case stating the principle for domestic animals generally, confirms that knowledge of viciousness is not essential where the owner otherwise failed to use ordinary care. If the first attack itself killed or inflicted severe injury on a person without provocation, G.S. 67-4.1(a)(1)a.1 makes the dog a dangerous dog and G.S. 67-4.4 strict liability applies. G.S. 67-12 gives a separate civil claim, but only against a person who intentionally, knowingly and wilfully allowed his or her own dog over six months old to run at large at night. Section 3-34 of the Mecklenburg County animal ordinance provides that a violation of Section 3-71 (restraint of animals) is negligence per se and could give rise to recovery of damages for personal injuries in a civil action.
My child was bitten. Does contributory negligence apply to a child in North Carolina?
A child under seven is conclusively presumed incapable of contributory negligence in North Carolina. Between seven and fourteen the presumption of incapacity is rebuttable, and the measure is what a child of that age, capacity, discretion, knowledge and experience would ordinarily have done in similar circumstances. A child who has reached fourteen is presumed to have sufficient capacity to be sensible of danger and the power to avoid it. Separately, G.S. 1-17(a) means the limitation period does not run against the child while the disability of minority lasts.
Can the dog’s owner blame me for being bitten?
Yes, and in North Carolina that defense can end a negligence claim entirely rather than reduce it, because contributory negligence is a complete bar. Insurers commonly argue that the person bitten provoked the animal, entered the property without permission, ignored a warning sign, or reached into an enclosure. There is a separate statutory route to a similar result: G.S. 67-4.1(b) makes the dangerous dog Article inapplicable where the injury was sustained by a person who, at the time, was committing a wilful trespass or another tort, was tormenting, abusing or assaulting the dog, had tormented, abused or assaulted the dog, or was committing or attempting to commit a crime.
Will the dog be euthanized if I make a civil claim?
A civil claim for damages is separate from what animal control does. Under G.S. 130A-196 an animal required to be vaccinated against rabies that has bitten a person is confined for ten days in a place the local health director designates, and the director may allow that confinement to take place on the owner’s own property; it is a rabies control measure rather than a penalty. A potentially dangerous dog determination under G.S. 67-4.1(c) is an administrative process with written notice and reasons, an appeal to a separate Board, and a further appeal heard de novo in the superior court. Mecklenburg County also operates its own dangerous animal procedure, which G.S. 67-4.5 expressly preserves, in which a hearing officer decides whether an animal is dangerous or prejudicial to public safety or health and may impose conditions, subject to review in the superior court.
Is a landlord responsible when a tenant’s dog bites someone?
Sometimes. In Holcomb v. Colonial Associates (2004) the North Carolina Supreme Court held that a landlord need not own or keep the dog to be liable in negligence, where it knew of the animals’ dangerous behavior and retained control through a lease term requiring the tenant to remove pets on written notice. Notice and control are the whole of the analysis, so the lease, the complaint history and any warning letters are the documents that decide it. The Residential Rental Agreements Act does not supply a separate route: G.S. 42-44(d) provides that a violation of that Article is not negligence per se.
What happens if the dog’s owner has no insurance?
Recovery in North Carolina dog bite cases usually comes from a homeowner’s, renter’s or landlord’s liability policy. Where none applies, or where the policy excludes animal liability or the particular breed, the claim depends on the owner’s own assets or on whether another party — a landlord, a property manager, a kennel or a handler’s employer — is liable for its own conduct. Identifying every policy that might respond, and every party whose own negligence contributed, is part of the early investigation.
Ask about your own situation.
Every matter turns on its facts. Mr. Sheehan reviews each inquiry himself.