Dog bites—Liability.
Applied in 19 court decisions — leading case State v. Bash (1996)
Most recently applied in 197 Wash. 2d 553 - Saralegui Blanco v. Gonzalez Sandoval (April 2021)
2012 c 94 s 1; 1941 c 77 s 1; Rem
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(1) The owner of any dog which shall bite any person while such person is in or on a public place or lawfully in or on a private place including the property of the owner of such dog, shall be liable for such damages as may be suffered by the person bitten, regardless of the former viciousness of such dog or the owner's knowledge of such viciousness.
(2) This section does not apply to the lawful application of a police dog, as defined in RCW 4.24.410.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.