Dangerous Dog Proceedings in New York in New York, NY Agriculture and Markets Law 123 Step by Step

What the statute means by a dangerous dog

Agriculture and Markets Law 108(24) sets three alternative descriptions. The first is a dog that without justification attacks a person, companion animal, farm animal or domestic animal and causes physical injury or death. The second is a dog that behaves in a manner a reasonable person would believe poses a serious and unjustified imminent threat of serious physical injury or death. The third covers a dog that without justification attacks a service, guide or hearing dog and causes physical injury or death. Police work dogs are excluded. Subdivision 28 defines physical injury as impairment of physical condition or substantial pain, and subdivision 29 defines serious physical injury to include protracted disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily organ.

How the proceeding starts and how fast it moves

Any person may make a complaint about an attack to a dog control officer or police officer, who may then bring a sworn complaint before a municipal judge or justice. On probable cause the court may order the dog seized pending the outcome. Section 123 requires the hearing to be held within five days on not less than two days' written notice to the owner. The petitioner must establish the dog is dangerous by clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard than the preponderance used in a civil injury case, which is one reason an adverse finding is useful in a later claim while the absence of one proves comparatively little.

The orders a judge may impose

A dangerous-dog finding carries mandatory neutering and microchipping. Beyond that, section 123 lets the court impose one or more further measures: evaluation by a certified applied behaviorist at the owner's expense with any recommended training, secure humane confinement, restraint in public on a leash held by a person at least twenty-one years old, muzzling when in public, or maintenance of a liability insurance policy the statute caps at one hundred thousand dollars for personal injury or death. Euthanasia or permanent confinement is reserved for aggravating circumstances. A euthanasia order is stayed thirty days, and an appeal is taken by filing a notice of appeal within thirty days.

Defenses the statute writes into the case

Section 123 recognizes justification. There is no dangerous-dog finding where the injured person was committing a crime against the owner or a member of the owner's family, was tormenting, abusing or assaulting the dog, or had done so in the past, or where the dog was responding to pain or injury, or was protecting itself, its owner, a member of its household, or its offspring. Those defenses shape the underlying facts a civil file needs. If a claim will later be contested on comparative fault under CPLR 1411, the testimony given at a hearing held within days of the incident will already be on the record.

Penalties, and what they do to the claim

The penalty ladder runs by injury and history. An owner who negligently permits a dog to bite and cause physical injury faces a civil penalty of up to four hundred dollars. Where the injury is serious physical injury the penalty rises to fifteen hundred dollars, and the statute allows that amount to be reduced by restitution the owner pays for unreimbursed medical expenses, lost earnings and other damages. Where a dog already adjudicated dangerous is negligently permitted to bite and cause serious physical injury, the offense is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to three thousand dollars, up to ninety days, or both. Killing a person lawfully present is a class A misdemeanor.

The New York City track, and why it is faster

Inside the five boroughs the Health Code adds an administrative route. Section 161.07 lets the Department make a preliminary determination that a dog is dangerous, weighing the circumstances, the nature and severity of the injuries and any prior bite history, with a behaviorist assessment when needed. The petition and notice of hearing are mailed no later than fifteen days after the dog enters a shelter, and the hearing at the administrative trials office is scheduled no more than twenty days after mailing. A dog that caused severe injury, defined in 161.02 as at least a broken bone or a disfiguring laceration requiring multiple stitches or cosmetic surgery, stays in the shelter until an administrative law judge reports it is not dangerous. Section 123(12) confirms none of this displaces a civil claim.