Dog Bite Lawyer In Beverly Hills, CA
A dog owner in California is responsible for a bite even if the dog never showed a hint of aggression. That is strict liability, and it is written into state law. If a dog bit you or your child in Beverly Hills, you have a claim against the owner’s insurance, and usually two years to act.
Your legal position after a Beverly Hills dog bite
California makes dog owners strictly liable for bites under Civil Code section 3342. You do not have to prove the owner was careless or knew the dog might bite. If their dog bit you while you were somewhere you had a right to be, the owner is on the hook for your injuries.
That single rule decides most cases. It also changes what the two sides argue about. Fault is usually settled by the statute, so the real dispute becomes how bad the injury is and how much insurance sits behind the owner.
Two deadlines run from the day of the bite. Miss either one and the claim is gone. More on that below.
California’s dog-bite law, in plain terms
To win a strict liability dog bite case in California, four things have to be true. These come straight from the jury instruction courts use, CACI No. 463:
- The person you are suing owned the dog.
- The dog bit you while you were in a public place or lawfully on private property.
- You were harmed.
- The dog’s bite was a substantial factor in causing that harm.
There is no “one free bite” in California. Some states let an owner off the first time because they had no reason to expect a bite. California does not. The dog’s history does not matter to a strict liability claim, and neither does how carefully the owner kept it.
A few limits are worth knowing up front. Trespassers are not covered, so you have to have been somewhere you were allowed to be. Provocation is a defense, and so is assumption of risk, which is why a veterinarian or kennel worker bitten on the job usually cannot bring a strict liability claim. And the bite does not have to break the skin for the statute to apply.
Bite or no bite? The distinction that changes your whole case
Strict liability covers bites. It does not cover every dog-caused injury.
If a large dog jumps up and knocks you down a flight of steps, or chases you into a fall, or scratches you badly, that is not a “bite.” Those injuries are real and often serious, but they run under ordinary negligence, not section 3342. That means you have to prove the owner did something unreasonable, which is a higher bar.
Most pages blur this. It matters because it decides which law you are arguing under, and negligence and strict liability are not the same case. Tell the lawyer exactly what the dog did, in order. The mechanics of the injury change the claim.
The deadline that quietly kills these cases
You generally have two years from the date of the bite to file a lawsuit in California (Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1). That is the number most people know.
Here is the one that ends cases before they start: if a government entity is involved, you have six months, not two years, to file a formal claim. A dog owned or held by a city or county. A shelter dog. An animal that a public agency was responsible for. Six months, and the clock starts at the injury. The recent Los Angeles shelter verdicts all began as government claims, and the six-month window is unforgiving.
If there is any chance a public agency is in the picture, treat the deadline as six months and get advice fast. Waiting to “see how it heals” is how good claims expire.
What a Beverly Hills dog-bite claim is worth, and what moves the number
The honest answer: it depends on the injury and, just as much, on the insurance behind the dog. Available coverage is usually the real ceiling on a recovery, not the severity of the wound.
Dog bites are one of the largest categories of homeowners liability claims in the country. In 2025, U.S. insurers paid roughly $1.86 billion across about 28,450 dog-related injury claims, according to the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm. That is up about 18.6 percent in dollars over the prior year, on roughly a quarter more claims. California files more of these claims than any other state.
Most Beverly Hills dog bites are paid by the owner’s homeowners or renters policy, not out of the owner’s pocket. Coverage on those policies commonly runs from $100,000 to $300,000 or more. When the dog belongs to a commercial property or a landlord who knew about a dangerous animal, other coverage can come into play. Finding every applicable policy is often where the actual value of a claim is won or lost.
One California rule catches people off guard. Under Howell v. Hamilton Meats, you recover the amount actually paid for your medical care, not the higher amount a hospital first billed. How your treatment is paid for, insurance versus a medical lien, changes what is recoverable. That is worth a conversation before you rack up bills.
Beverly Hills has its own dog rules, and a broken rule helps your claim
Beverly Hills has its own animal ordinance, separate from the county’s, and three parts of it matter to a bite claim:
- A dog off its owner’s property must be on a leash no longer than six feet (Municipal Code 53.06.2). Retractable leashes run out past that.
- Keeping a vicious dog in the city is illegal (53.33). So is letting one loose in a way that endangers people who are lawfully on the premises.
- Guard dogs and sentry dogs are banned inside city limits entirely (53.66).
Why care about the leash length or a licensing lapse? Because a violation of a safety ordinance can support a negligence-per-se argument that sits alongside your strict liability claim. In plain terms, breaking the rule is itself evidence the owner was at fault. That guard-dog ban is not theoretical either. The $13 million verdict against Chris Brown in July 2026 came out of a security dog mauling a worker at his Los Angeles-area home.
Four questions that decide almost every Beverly Hills dog-bite claim
Before anything else, run your situation through these four gates. They sort out, in about a minute, whether you have a straightforward claim or a harder one.
Bite or knock-down?
A bite puts you under strict liability. A knock-down, chase, or scratch puts you under negligence.
Were you allowed there?
Public sidewalk, an invited visit, your job: you clear the statute’s biggest limit. Trespassing usually defeats it.
Whose insurance pays?
Usually the owner’s homeowners or renters policy. A landlord or commercial site can add coverage.
What is your deadline?
Two years by default. Six months if any government entity is involved. The shorter one controls.
Answer those four and you know most of what a first call with a lawyer would cover. Bring the answers with you.
After a dog bite in Beverly Hills: first steps that protect the claim
Do these in roughly this order.
1Get medical care
2Report the bite
3Get insurance info
4Photograph injury
5Call a lawyer
Get medical care the same day, even for a wound that looks minor. Puncture bites drive infection deep, and the medical record is the spine of the claim. Then report the bite. Los Angeles County requires animal bites to be reported to its Veterinary Public Health program, and the biting dog is placed under a 10-day rabies observation quarantine. That report also creates an official record of what happened.
Get the owner’s name, address, and insurance information, and photograph the injury early and often as it changes. Collect names and numbers of any witnesses. And do not give a recorded statement to the dog owner’s insurance company before you have talked to a lawyer. Adjusters open with friendly, open-ended questions for a reason, and early recorded answers get used later.
If a child was bitten, the reporting and medical steps are the same, but the value analysis is not: facial scarring on a young child is treated very differently by both juries and insurers.
When you probably don't need a lawyer
Not every dog bite needs one, and a straight answer builds more trust than a pitch.
A minor nip that broke no skin, needed no real treatment, and where the owner’s homeowners insurer is already handling it fairly, you can often resolve on your own. Small claims that would be eaten up by fees are not worth a contingency arrangement for anyone.
Call a lawyer when the injury is serious or left a scar, when a child was hurt, when the owner or insurer disputes or denies the claim, when a government entity might be involved (that six-month clock), or when the owner appears to have no insurance and you are trying to find other coverage. Those are the cases where the outcome actually turns on the work.
Why Alpha Law PC
Alpha Law PC is a Beverly Hills personal injury practice. Its founding attorney, Alexander Khoubian, has been licensed to practice law in California since 2020 (State Bar No. 330918) and has been named to Super Lawyers Rising Stars every year from 2022 through 2026. He earned his law degree at Southwestern Law School after his undergraduate work at UC San Diego, and is a member of the American Bar Association, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and the Beverly Hills Bar Association.
CA State Bar No. 330918
Super Lawyers Rising Stars 2022-2026
Southwestern Law School, JD
UC San Diego
ABA – CAALA – BHBA
You can verify the license yourself. The State Bar of California publishes every attorney’s record, and No. 330918 is public.
On a dog bite case, you work with the attorney directly. The office is at 9701 Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Hills, a block most bite victims in the area can reach without crossing the city.
Related practice areas
Dog-bite questions people actually ask
No. Strict liability under Civil Code 3342 covers bites. If a dog knocked you down, chased you into a fall, or scratched you, that is a negligence claim, and you have to prove the owner acted unreasonably.
Mostly, with local specifics. The city requires a leash no longer than six feet off the owner’s property, has no city-run off-leash dog area, bans vicious dogs, and bans guard and sentry dogs outright. A violation can support a negligence-per-se argument on top of strict liability.
Two years from the date of the bite in most cases. Six months if a government entity is involved. The shorter deadline wins, so identify any public agency early.
Usually the owner’s homeowners or renters insurance. A landlord or commercial property can add coverage in the right facts. The owner pays out of pocket mainly when there is no policy.
California uses pure comparative negligence, so your recovery is reduced by your share of fault but not eliminated. Provocation and trespassing are separate defenses that can defeat a strict liability claim outright.
Yes. Report animal bites to Los Angeles County Veterinary Public Health. The dog goes under a 10-day rabies quarantine. The report also documents your case.
California dog bite cases are typically handled on a contingency fee: the lawyer takes a percentage of the recovery and is paid nothing if there is no recovery. Ask any firm for its exact percentage and how case costs are handled before you sign.
Talk to a Beverly Hills dog-bite lawyer
If a dog bit you or your child in Beverly Hills, the two things working against you are the deadline and the insurance company’s head start. Both get worse while you wait.
Alexander Khoubian will review what happened and tell you plainly whether you have a claim worth bringing.