CIV § 3342

Dog Owners Liable Regardless of Past Bites: CIV § 3342

Under Cal. Civil Code § 3342, a dog owner is liable if their dog bites someone in public or lawfully on private property, regardless of prior viciousness.

Official text CIV § 3342 — California
  • (a) The owner of any dog is liable for the damages suffered by any person who is bitten by the dog while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, including the property of the owner of the dog, regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner’s knowledge of such viciousness. A person is lawfully upon the private property of such owner within the meaning of this section when he is on such property in the performance of any duty imposed upon him by the laws of this state or by the laws or postal regulations of the United States, or when he is on such property upon the invitation, express or implied, of the owner.
  • (b) Nothing in this section shall authorize the bringing of an action pursuant to subdivision (a) against any governmental agency using a dog in military or police work if the bite or bites occurred while the dog was defending itself from an annoying, harassing, or provoking act, or assisting an employee of the agency in any of the following:
  • (1) In the apprehension or holding of a suspect where the employee has a reasonable suspicion of the suspect’s involvement in criminal activity.
  • (2) In the investigation of a crime or possible crime.
  • (3) In the execution of a warrant.
  • (4) In the defense of a peace officer or another person.
  • (c) Subdivision (b) shall not apply in any case where the victim of the bite or bites was not a party to, nor a participant in, nor suspected to be a party to or a participant in, the act or acts that prompted the use of the dog in the military or police work.
  • (d) Subdivision (b) shall apply only where a governmental agency using a dog in military or police work has adopted a written policy on the necessary and appropriate use of a dog for the police or military work enumerated in subdivision (b).

Text as published in the 2026 snapshot of the code.

Source: Vaquill Open US Law, compiled from official state publishers (huggingface.co), reproduced under license CC BY 4.0.

Read this provision at the official source →

What it actually says

Section 3342 replaces the old common law rule that an owner was liable only once the dog had shown itself to be dangerous. The owner of any dog is liable for the damages suffered by any person bitten by the dog while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, including the property of the owner, "regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner's knowledge of such viciousness". There is no first-bite allowance and no need to show the owner did anything careless.

The two conditions the section does impose are about the bite and the victim's presence. It must be a bite: a dog that knocks someone off a bicycle, or frightens them into the road, is outside this section and falls to ordinary negligence under § 1714. And the person must have been in a public place or lawfully in a private place. Subdivision (a) then defines lawful presence on the owner's own property generously — performing a duty imposed by state law or by the laws or postal regulations of the United States, which covers the postal carrier and the meter reader, or being there on the owner's express or implied invitation.

Subdivisions (b) to (d) carve out police and military dogs in defined circumstances: no action lies against a governmental agency where the bite occurred while the dog was defending itself from an annoying, harassing or provoking act or assisting an employee in apprehending a suspect, investigating a crime, executing a warrant or defending a person — but only where the agency has adopted a written policy on the use of such dogs, and never where the victim was not a party to, participant in, or suspected of, the acts that prompted the dog's use. Whether a victim was lawfully present, and what a bite is worth, are questions of fact worth taking to a lawyer.

When it applies

  • A child bitten walking past an open gate or in a park
  • A delivery driver or postal carrier bitten at the door
  • A guest bitten inside the owner's home
  • A bite by a dog that has never shown aggression before
  • The owner says the dog was provoked or the victim was trespassing
  • A dog on a lead that lunges and bites a passer-by

What this section does not say

  • It only covers bites. Injuries from a dog jumping up, knocking someone over or causing a fall are outside this section and are dealt with as negligence under § 1714.
  • It does not cover a trespasser. Liability under subdivision (a) requires the victim to have been in a public place or lawfully in a private place.
  • It is not about dogs injuring other animals. A dog that attacks livestock or poultry on another's premises is dealt with by § 3341, and injury to an animal as property is § 3340.
  • It does not order anything done about the dog. Steps to remove the danger, and proceedings about confinement or destruction, come from § 3342.5 and from local animal control law.
  • It is not a criminal provision. Whether anyone is prosecuted, and whether the dog is declared dangerous, are decisions made under other law by other bodies.

Worked examples

Invented situations, written to show how the wording bites. They are not real cases, not judgments and not precedent, and nothing here predicts what would happen in yours.

Illustrative example

A child walking along a footpath is bitten by a dog that comes through an open gate. The owner says the dog has never shown aggression and the child must have startled it.

How the wording applies

Section 3342 makes the owner liable for a bite in a public place regardless of the dog's former viciousness or the owner's knowledge of it, which is what disposes of the one-free-bite idea. The fact that decides it is where the person was: on a footpath they were in a public place, and the argument moves to apportionment for provocation rather than to whether liability exists at all.

How the parties settled it

The owner's insurer pays the medical and dental costs and an agreed sum for the scarring, and the owner fits a self-closing gate and a warning sign.

Illustrative example

A delivery driver is bitten at a front door while handing over a parcel. The owner says the driver had no business being on the property.

How the wording applies

Liability under subdivision (a) requires the person to have been in a public place or lawfully on private property, and someone delivering to the door is there by implied invitation. It hinges on the scope of that invitation: a driver on the path to the door is lawfully present, while one who has gone round the back into a fenced yard raises a different question.

How the parties settled it

The owner pays the driver's uninsured costs and lost shifts, and arranges for parcels to be left in a box at the gate with the dog kept inside during delivery hours.

Illustrative example

A guest at a house is bitten after leaning over the dog while it is eating.

How the wording applies

The section covers a bite to a person lawfully in a private place, including a guest, and requires no knowledge of viciousness. What the outcome turns on is provocation: the section is not defeated by the guest's conduct, but the injured person's own want of care is taken into account, so how the incident began does the work.

How the parties settled it

The household pays the medical costs and the guest accepts a reduction reflecting their part in it, and the dog is fed in a closed room when visitors are present.

How courts have read it

Decisions construing this provision. The question and the summary are ours; the quoted sentence is the court's own words, taken from the published opinion. These are the decisions in our corpus, not every decision there is, and nothing here predicts any other case. Reported 1991 to 2017.

Johnson v. McMahan, 68 Cal. App. 4th 173 (1998)

Court of Appeal

What the court had to decide

Does the California dog bite statute, Civil Code section 3342, apply when the bitee does not suffer a wound?

What it held

Yes, a bite under section 3342 does not require that the skin be broken or a wound inflicted; the dog's jaws clamping on a portion of the victim's trousers with the leg between them constitutes a bite.

In the court's words
In plain terms, if the dog’s jaws clamped upon a portion of plaintiffs trousers so that a part of plaintiff’s leg was between the jaws, albeit separated from tooth by the cloth, a bite occurred.

City of Huntington Beach v. City of Westminster, 57 Cal. App. 4th 220 (1997)

Court of Appeal

What the court had to decide

Does Civil Code section 3342 provide a basis for shifting liability between codefendants or exclude a robbery victim from protection under the statute?

What it held

The court held that Civil Code section 3342 is silent on indemnity between a dog owner and a codefendant once the victim has been compensated, and that a robbery victim who is an innocent passerby is entitled to the statute's protection.

In the court's words
It is silent on the subject of indemnity between a dog owner and a codefendant once the innocent victim has been made whole.

Davis v. Gaschler, 11 Cal. App. 4th 1392 (1992)

Court of Appeal

What the court had to decide

Whether Civil Code section 3342 imposes a duty on dog owners that precludes the defense of primary assumption of risk for a plaintiff who voluntarily assisted an injured dog.

What it held

The court held that Civil Code section 3342 imposes a duty on dog owners and that plaintiff's voluntary act of helping the injured dog does not remove her from the class of persons protected by the statute, so the defendant failed to establish primary assumption of risk as a complete defense.

In the court's words
We conclude defendants failed to establish primary assumption of risk.

Source: Caselaw Access Project, CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication).

The same problem elsewhere

The other legal systems in this collection answer the same everyday problem with their own provisions.

The comparison and these one-line summaries are in English.

A dog bit someone: what the law says in five countries

Read the full comparison →

Related sections

CIV § 3342.5 Dog Removal After Two Bites | CIV § 3342.5 CIV § 3341 Kill dog or animal attacking livestock: CIV § 3341 CIV § 1714 Everyone responsible for negligence: CIV § 1714 CIV § 3333 Full Compensation for All Detriment Caused | CIV § 3333

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We copy this text from the official publisher and re-check it against that source on every page load, but we cannot guarantee it is complete, current or free of error, and we accept no liability for any reliance on it. An amendment can take effect before a consolidation catches up. The publisher's own copy is linked below; where the two differ, it is the official one that counts.

This page reproduces the text of CIV § 3342 in force at the date shown and explains it in general terms. It is not legal advice and takes no account of the circumstances of your case, which can change the answer completely. For a live dispute, for limitation periods, and before taking any step in court, consult a qualified lawyer in California.

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