Boynton Beach Dog Bite Lawyer
A dog got loose, and now the wound care, the shots and the calls from an insurance company are all on you, and none of it was your choice. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Boynton Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Dog Bite claims in Boynton Beach
The owner will tell you the dog has never done this before, and Florida does not let that be their defense. Meanwhile you are paying for the emergency room, booking a plastic surgeon, and only just learning that a homeowner policy may be what pays. Making that claim properly is our job, and we start the day you call.
The bites that cause lasting injury are usually to the face and hands of a small child, and they usually happen somewhere familiar rather than in a public place. Florida's comparative negligence provision reduces a recovery where the person bitten provoked the animal, but the "Bad Dog" sign defense does not apply at all to a child under six. A claim on a child's behalf also carries its own machinery: a parent brings it, and a settlement above the threshold set by Florida law requires court approval. Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control holds the bite report and the quarantine record.
The dog injuries that matter most in Boynton Beach happen at either end of the age range: facial bites to small children, and knock-downs that fracture a hip in an older adult. The second is not a bite and runs on a different provision, which is why people do not think to bring it. Cases here are generally heard at the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach.
What to do after a dog bite in Boynton Beach
- Get treated, because infection is the real risk. A puncture that looks minor closes over bacteria and does not drain, which is why dog bites become serious days later rather than on the day. Hand and face wounds are the ones that need attention fastest. Rabies prophylaxis, where it is indicated, is time-sensitive, and the medical record from that first visit is also what establishes the injury happened at all.
- Report it, so a county file exists. A report to the county animal agency opens a file, triggers the rabies quarantine and creates an independent record of the animal, the address and the owner. Owners dispute the circumstances weeks later as a matter of routine. Without that file it becomes one account against another, and the person with the healed wound is the one who has to prove what happened.
- Photograph the wounds now, and keep photographing them. Before they are cleaned and closed, then at a week, at a month, and as they heal. Scarring is the largest head of loss in most of these claims and it is the one nobody documents, because by the time anybody thinks about it the only record is a mature scar and a description of what it used to look like.
- Get the owner’s details, and the property owner’s. Name, address, phone and any insurance. If the owner is a tenant, note who owns the property, because a landlord or an association that already knew about a dangerous animal can be answerable separately and usually carries a larger policy. Note anybody who saw it, since bites in a yard or a corridor rarely have neutral witnesses later.
- See a plastic surgeon before you discuss numbers. An early offer in a bite case is priced on a wound that has not finished healing, and it will not include revision surgery, laser treatment or the further procedures a growing child needs as a scar changes with them. A consultation puts a figure on what is actually ahead. A release signed before that cannot be reopened afterward.
Where these happen in Boynton Beach
South Palm Beach County has more children and more older adults in the same neighborhoods than most of the state, and the dog claims here reflect exactly that.
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A familiar house rather than a public place
The serious injuries to children happen at a relative’s or a friend’s home, around a dog everybody considered safe.
- Homeowners or renters insurance, which is what handles the claim rather than the household
- The under-six rule, which removes the signage defense entirely
- A settlement for a child, which has its own approval requirements and cannot simply be signed
- Photographs taken at the time on a family phone, which are usually the only early record
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Knock-downs in older adults
A dog that jumps, pulls its owner off balance or runs into somebody has not bitten them, and at eighty the consequence is a fractured hip rather than a bruise.
- A different statutory provision, covering damage done by a dog rather than a bite specifically
- A hip fracture in an older adult, which frequently ends independent living
- Claims nobody brings, because a knock-down does not feel like a dog case
- The same homeowners or renters coverage responding
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Managed and 55 and over communities
Communities with written animal rules, common areas and an association that keeps minutes.
- Association rules on animals and leads, and whether the community enforced its own
- Minutes and complaint records showing what was known about a particular dog
- Management companies, separately insured from the association
- Common walkways and clubhouse areas where residents encounter animals daily
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Plazas and outdoor dining
The Congress Avenue and Federal Highway corridors, where a lot of businesses welcome animals.
- The business policy on animals, and whether it was applied that day
- Incident reports, written for the business insurer and not volunteered
- Storefront and lot cameras, which overwrite within weeks
- Commercial coverage alongside the owner’s personal policy
What causes them
- Landscapers, pool technicians and contractors bitten entering a yard they were sent to work in
- Bites in the shared corridors, elevators, lobbies and pool decks of apartment and condominium buildings
- Bites at a friend’s or a relative’s home, which is where most serious injuries to children happen
- Dogs at outdoor dining, breweries and stores that allow them
- Boarding kennels, groomers, day care and dog parks, where an operator may be answerable as well
The injuries we see, and what each one turns on
Nerve damage and loss of function
Numbness, weakness and permanent loss of sensation, particularly in the hands and face. These are proved with treating records and with a specialist assessment rather than with photographs, and they are frequently the part of a claim that gets left out because the scar is more visible.
The psychological injury, which is not soft
Children who were bitten develop lasting fear of animals, sleep disturbance and avoidance, and it is well documented enough that it is treated rather than dismissed. It is recoverable, and it needs a record made while it is happening rather than a description offered a year later.
Catastrophic injury and death
Rare and real, most often involving very young children or older adults, and usually with more than one animal. Where somebody is killed, Florida decides by statute which survivors may recover and the claim is brought by the personal representative of the estate.
What Florida law requires you to prove
Florida does not give a dog one free bite
Under Fla. Stat. § 767.04 the owner is liable for a bite in a public place, or where the person bitten was lawfully on private property, whether or not the dog had ever shown aggression before. The old one-bite rule people have heard about is not the law here. A prior history still matters, because it defeats arguments about provocation and it can support a claim against a landlord or an association that knew, but it is not required.
The two limits on that, and the exception inside one of them
The same statute reduces damages by the share of the bitten person’s own negligence, which is where provocation is argued. It also gives an owner a defense where a sign reading "Bad Dog" is displayed prominently on the property, which is a genuine limitation and surprises people. That defense does not apply where the person bitten is under six years old, and it does not apply where the owner’s own negligence caused the bite.
When it is not a bite, and who else can be answerable
A dog that knocks somebody over, runs into them or causes a fall has not bitten them, and Fla. Stat. § 767.01 makes owners liable for damage done by their dogs more broadly. Beyond the owner, a landlord, an association or a management company can be answerable in negligence where it knew a dangerous animal was on the property and did nothing, and a boarding or grooming business can be answerable for an animal in its care. Most claims arising on or after March 24, 2023 carry a two-year deadline under Fla. Stat. § 95.11.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide dog bite page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Palm Beach County
Two things decide these claims here, and neither is liability: whether a record was made early, and what a surgeon says the injury will still need.
- The report to Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, and the file it opens on the animal
- The rabies quarantine record where one was carried out
- The medical record from the first treatment, which establishes the injury and its mechanism
- Photographs of the wounds before closure and at intervals while they heal
- For a knock-down, the imaging and the orthopedic record, which is the injury rather than the animal
- Association rules, minutes and complaint records where a community property is involved
- Prior incidents involving the same animal at the same address
- A plastic surgeon’s assessment for a child, addressing revision as they grow
A child’s scar is not a fixed thing. It is revised as they grow, sometimes over years, and any settlement reached before a surgeon has said what that involves is a number chosen without the main fact in it.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Boynton Beach is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled dog bite claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brian H. Malamud Senior Trial Attorney More than twenty-five years on the Wolf & Pravato trial team. Brian Malamud has handled your kind of case many times over, and he knows early which parts of it are going to decide it. Full profile →
How insurance companies handle these claims
Because liability is usually not seriously in question, an adjuster on a bite claim is working on two things instead: reducing the share and closing the file before the injury is finished declaring itself.
- You were not supposed to be there
- Strict liability applies where somebody is in a public place or lawfully on private property, so an adjuster will look for a reason the visit was not lawful. Delivery drivers, service workers, contractors and invited guests are lawfully present. Where the person was working, there is frequently a compensation claim running alongside this one.
- An offer, while the wound is still healing
- This is the practice where an early settlement does the most damage. A scar at eight weeks is not the scar at a year, revision surgery is common, and a child’s scar will need work repeatedly as they grow. The number should follow a plastic surgeon’s assessment rather than precede it, and a release cannot be reopened.
- The policy has an animal exclusion or a sublimit
- Some homeowners and renters policies exclude particular breeds or cap animal liability well below the policy limit, and this is presented as the end of the discussion. It is worth reading the actual policy rather than accepting a summary, and worth looking past it: a landlord, an association, a business or an umbrella policy may sit behind the first one.
What a claim can include
Psychological treatment
Therapy for fear of animals, sleep disturbance and avoidance, which is common after a bite and particularly in children. It has to be documented while it is happening.
Lost income, including a parent’s
Time off work for the injured person, and for a parent attending appointments and surgeries with a child. The second is routinely left out of a claim because nobody asks about it.
Pain, and what daily life has become
Function in a hand, confidence around animals, and how somebody feels about a face they see every morning. It is proved with the account of the people around the injured person as much as with records.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Boynton Beach
A case arising in Boynton Beach is normally heard at the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach rather than downtown West Palm Beach, and the firm’s office on East Gateway Boulevard is a short drive from it. Settlements involving a child require court approval, which is a local process rather than a paperwork exercise.
Fewer than one percent of Florida lawyers are Board Certified in Civil Trial law: 861 of them, against a Bar membership over 109,000. Richard Pravato is one, and has been since 2004. Carriers price a claim partly on who is holding it, which is the practical reason that matters to somebody deciding who to call.
A consultation costs nothing, and neither does the case unless we recover money for you. Where we do not believe a claim is worth bringing, we will tell you plainly rather than take it on and let it drift.
Boynton Beach dog bite questions
My child was bitten by a friend’s dog. Do I have to sue them personally?
In practice the claim is against their homeowners or renters insurance, which is what that coverage exists for, and the insurer handles it rather than the family. That is worth knowing because reluctance to involve a friend or a relative is the most common reason a child’s scarring goes uncompensated. A settlement for a child also requires court approval, which protects the money rather than complicating it.
A dog knocked my mother over and she broke her hip. It never bit her.
That is still a claim, and it is one families regularly do not think to bring. Florida makes owners answerable for damage done by their dogs more broadly than for bites specifically, so a knock-down that causes a fall is covered. In an older adult a hip fracture is rarely just a fracture, and the year that follows it frequently includes a loss of independence that no invoice records.
The dog’s owner says my son teased it.
Provocation reduces a claim rather than ending it, and it is asserted far more often than it is established. It also matters that the signage defense does not apply at all to a child under six. What answers the argument is the county file, the animal’s prior history and any witness, and a prior complaint about the same dog usually settles it.
The dog had never bitten anyone before. Does that protect the owner?
No. Florida does not follow a one-free-bite rule. Under Fla. Stat. § 767.04 liability attaches regardless of the dog’s former viciousness and regardless of whether the owner knew of it. That is the central difference between Florida and many other states.
It was a friend’s dog. Do I have to sue them personally?
In practice the claim is nearly always paid by their homeowners or renters insurance, which is what that coverage exists for. Most people find that changes how they feel about bringing it. We can explain how the claim would actually proceed before you decide anything.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 1375 E Gateway Blvd, Boynton Beach, FL 33426.