Unlike nearly every other state in the United States, the New York State courts have determined that to succeed in a personal injury lawsuit, a person injured by a dog must prove that the owner of the dog knew it had “vicious propensities” prior to the event leading to injury. As a result, a Buffalo citizen injured by a dog is faced with the difficult task of trying to find evidence of what the dog owner knew.
This can be especially difficult if a person is attacked by a strange dog. While the owner will be routinely asked if the dog had ever displayed vicious propensities, it will be the rare owner who actually admits that they knew their dog had a tendency to bite, growl, act aggressively or engage in dangerous behavior, but they did nothing about it. Many cases have been dismissed because the owner – truthfully or untruthfully – simply denied knowledge of any aggressive behavior, and there was no way to prove what they knew.
In this situation, the injured party usually is placed in the position of hiring an investigator to speak with the owner’s neighbors to obtain any leads regarding the dog’s prior behavior. Of course, under New York State law it is not enough to prove that the dog had previously acted in a vicious manner, it must also be proven that the owner knew about it. As a result, it is not enough for a neighbor or other witness to merely state their observations of the dog. Ultimately, a witness must be found who can confirm that the owner either saw such behavior or was spoken to about it to support a dog bit lawsuit.
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