Multiple Dog Attack Lawyer in Los Angeles, CA Household Limits and Divided Fault

The City limit on animals per household

Los Angeles Animal Services publishes a summary of important animal laws stating that a household may keep up to three dogs and three cats, citing Municipal Code sections 53.00 and 53.50, and that dogs must be leashed under section 53.06. The same summary states that tethering a dog for more than three cumulative hours in a twenty-four hour period is unlawful under section 53.70, and that owners must clean up after their animals under section 53.49 (animal laws handout). Where a household kept more animals than the limit allows, that is a dated fact about how the animals were kept, and permits are addressed separately in Municipal Code section 53.50.

Each dog has an owner, and owners may differ

Civil Code section 3342 directs liability to the owner of a dog for damages suffered by a person bitten in a public place or while lawfully in a private place, regardless of the former viciousness of the animal or the owner's knowledge of it. In a multi-animal incident, that requires an inventory rather than a summary: which animals were present, which are licensed to which person, which unit each lives in, and who was in control of each at the time. Where a person handling a dog is not its owner, the claim against that handler runs on the ordinary-care duty in Civil Code section 1714. Licensing records answer ownership better than a conversation at the scene, and in rabies areas Health and Safety Code section 121690 requires licensing after a dog reaches four months and vaccination after three months.

How fault divides across several people

The division is not uniform across damage types. Civil Code section 1431.2 provides that in an action for personal injury based on principles of comparative fault, liability for non-economic damages is several only and not joint, with each defendant liable only for the amount allocated in direct proportion to that defendant's percentage of fault and a separate judgment rendered accordingly. The same section defines economic damages as objectively verifiable monetary losses including medical expenses, loss of earnings, costs of obtaining substitute domestic services and loss of employment opportunities, and non-economic damages as subjective losses including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering and emotional distress. Where two households each owned an animal, that allocation is the mechanism through which a single injury becomes two exposures of different sizes.

The state categories were written with repetition in mind

Food and Agricultural Code section 31602 defines a potentially dangerous dog to include one that, unprovoked, on two separate occasions within the prior 36-month period engaged in behavior requiring defensive action by a person off the owner's property, one that unprovoked bit a person causing a less severe injury than the severe-injury definition, and one that, unprovoked, on two separate occasions within that period killed, seriously bit, inflicted injury or otherwise caused injury attacking a domestic animal off the owner's property. Section 31604 supplies that severe-injury definition, and section 31603 defines the vicious category. Because the definitions run animal by animal, a proceeding may reach one dog in a household and not another.

Conditions that follow a declaration, animal by animal

Section 31641 requires licensing and vaccination with the designation noted in the registration records and permits an additional fee. Section 31642 requires the dog to be kept indoors or in a securely fenced yard and, off the premises, on a substantial leash under the control of a responsible adult. Section 31643 requires written notice to animal control within two working days of the animal's death, sale or removal from the jurisdiction. Section 31605 addresses enclosure requirements.

Restraint rules and the presumption

Inside the City, Municipal Code section 53.06.2 requires a six-foot leash off the keeper's premises and section 53.34 addresses animals at large, making the offense a misdemeanor where the animal bites. Where an ordinance was violated, Evidence Code section 669 presumes failure to exercise due care on its four conditions. With several animals, the presumption is assessed against each keeper separately, which is another reason the inventory matters.

Records to request early

Licensing records for each animal. The bite report, which County Veterinary Public Health says should identify the current location of the biting animal as one of its most important elements (Reporting Animal Bites). Quarantine records for each animal confined, under the County provisions described in the rabies manual (quarantine provisions). Any dangerous-animal file under Municipal Code section 53.34.4 or the County process in County Code section 10.37.110 (County Code 10.37.110).

Scope

General information about published statutes, ordinances and agency material, not legal advice about any incident. Questions belong with the attorney who advertises on this site.