Flanders v. Goodfellow
New York dog-attack cases changed in April 2025.
The old rule often ended a case unless the injured person could prove the owner knew or should have known of the animal’s vicious propensities. Flanders held that this is no longer the only path.
In Flanders v. Goodfellow, 44 N.Y.3d 57 (2025), a postal carrier was bitten while delivering a package. The Court of Appeals reinstated the strict-liability claim because the evidence raised a factual question about the owners’ constructive knowledge of the dog’s propensity to bite.
More broadly, the Court overruled Bard v. Jahnke to the extent it barred negligence liability for harm caused by domestic animals. The Court restored ordinary tort principles, allowing a plaintiff to prove that an owner failed to exercise due care under the circumstances even when the traditional vicious-propensity theory cannot be established.
The investigation should no longer stop after asking whether the dog bit before. It must examine both the animal’s prior behavior and whether the defendant handled, restrained, supervised, or exposed others to the dog with reasonable care.
The current framework
Two distinct paths to liability.
Strict liability
Prove the dog had vicious propensities, the owner knew or should have known of them, and the injury resulted from those propensities.
Ordinary negligence
Prove the defendant failed to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances and that this failure caused the injury.
A plaintiff may assert either theory or both. The evidence needed for each claim overlaps in places but is not identical.
Known vicious propensities
A previous bite is not required.
New York’s strict-liability theory remains important after Flanders. “Vicious propensities” include behavior reflecting a tendency to act in a way that puts others at risk. The issue is not limited to whether the dog previously bit a person.
Potential evidence of a dangerous propensity or the owner’s knowledge may include:
- Growling, snarling, snapping, lunging, or baring teeth
- Prior bites, attacks, fights, or attempts to attack
- Forceful pulling, jumping, chasing, or escape behavior
- Warnings given to visitors, neighbors, workers, or delivery personnel
- Muzzles, heavy restraints, special confinement, or prior training
- Complaints, animal-control records, veterinary notes, or social-media posts
The behavior must be evaluated in context. Affectionate jumping, rough play, guarding, or interactions with other animals may have different significance depending on the way the injury occurred.
The Flanders negligence claim
What reasonable care required under the circumstances.
The ordinary-negligence path focuses on the defendant’s conduct. The question is whether a reasonably careful person would have handled the situation differently and whether the failure to use appropriate care caused the injury.
Control of the dog
Leashes, fences, doors, gates, crates, and other methods must be evaluated against the dog, setting, and people exposed.
Management of the encounter
Visitors, children, delivery workers, other animals, and public spaces may call for different precautions and warnings.
Applicable requirements
Local leash rules, building policies, prior dangerous-dog orders, and other requirements may inform the negligence analysis.
Building both theories
Preserve the evidence before accounts change.
A prompt investigation should identify the dog’s owner, keeper, location, license, veterinarian, prior residences, and insurance. Witnesses may know about behavior that was never formally reported. Doorbell cameras, security video, photographs, messages, online posts, training records, and animal-control files can also matter.
Prior behavior, complaints, restraints, warnings, training, and handling practices.
Witness accounts, video, location, supervision, restraint failure, and the sequence of events.
Medical care, photographs, scarring, reports, expenses, lost income, and psychological effects.
Documenting the harm
Dog attacks can cause lasting physical and emotional injuries.
Injuries may include puncture wounds, torn muscles and tendons, nerve damage, fractures, infection, facial injuries, permanent scarring, and injuries suffered while escaping or protecting another person. Children may face repeated procedures as they grow and significant emotional effects after an attack.
Recoverable damages may include pain and suffering, medical and reconstructive care, psychological treatment, lost earnings, diminished earning capacity, scarring, disability, and other losses supported by the evidence.
Beyond the dog’s owner
Keepers, landlords, and other parties require separate analysis.
The person caring for or controlling the dog may differ from its legal owner. A landlord or property operator may also be relevant, but claims against those parties depend on notice, control, the ability to remove or confine the animal, and the specific conduct alleged. Each defendant and each theory must be evaluated separately.
Insurance may be available through homeowners, renters, landlord, umbrella, or commercial policies. Early notice and a complete coverage investigation help protect potential sources of recovery.
Time-sensitive claims
Investigate long before the filing period expires.
Many New York personal-injury actions must be commenced within three years, but exceptions and shorter deadlines may apply. Claims involving public entities, government employees, public property, wrongful death, or other special circumstances require immediate review.
Evidence has a much shorter life. Video can be overwritten, online posts removed, the dog relocated, witnesses lost, and insurance coverage become harder to identify. Early investigation is especially important under Flanders because both prior animal behavior and the defendant’s conduct must be developed.