Two years is the number most people have heard. In Los Angeles it is often not the operative one, because a public agency in the facts can shorten the useful window to six months.
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Six boxes, about thirty seconds. You pick when to be called back, and that is when the phone rings.
Or call (213) 953-1047Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 provides two years for an action for assault, battery, or injury to or for the death of an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. A dog bite claim brought under Civil Code section 3342 or on the ordinary-care duty in Civil Code section 1714 sits inside that period. Nothing in negotiation, correspondence or an insurer's own regulatory timeline changes it.
Where a public agency, a public employee or public property appears anywhere in the account, a separate sequence applies first. the presentation statute numbered 911.2 in the Government Code requires a claim relating to a cause of action for death or injury to person to be presented not later than six months after accrual, with claims relating to other causes of action allowed one year, and it addresses the effect of a filing fee and fee waiver on the presentation date for claims to the Department of General Services. Section 912.4 requires the board to act within forty-five days after presentation, allows the claimant and board to extend that period by written agreement, and provides that failure to act within the time prescribed means the claim is deemed rejected on the last day of the period.
Government Code section 913 requires written notice of the action taken or of inaction deemed rejection, and prescribes a warning where a claim is rejected in whole or in part, stating that subject to certain exceptions the claimant has only six months from the date the notice was personally delivered or deposited in the mail to file a court action, with a reference to section 945.6. The companion provision numbered 945.6 then provides that suit must be commenced not later than six months after that notice is personally delivered or deposited in the mail, and where written notice is not given in accordance with section 913, within two years of accrual, with an extension for a person unable to sue because of imprisonment in state prison.
Code of Civil Procedure section 352 provides that where a person entitled to bring an action is under the age of majority at the time the cause of action accrued, the time of that disability is not part of the limitations period. Subdivision (b) removes that tolling for an action against a public entity or public employee upon a cause of action for which a claim is required to be presented. A family that assumes a child's claim can wait may find that the private part of the claim is intact and the public-entity part is gone.
Where a bite results in death, Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 identifies who may bring the action, and section 377.61 provides that damages may be awarded that under all the circumstances may be just but may not include damages recoverable under section 377.34. Section 377.34 limits a survival action to loss or damage the decedent sustained before death and excludes damages for pain, suffering or disfigurement, with subdivision (b) allowing those damages only where the action was granted a preference under section 36 before January 1, 2022, or was filed on or after January 1, 2022, and before January 1, 2026. Filing dates therefore carry consequences beyond timeliness.
Civil Code section 3342.5 allows an action, where a dog has bitten a human being on at least two separate occasions, brought by any person, the district attorney or a city attorney in the county where a bite occurred, to determine whether conditions of treatment or confinement have changed enough to remove the danger. The dangerous-dog process moves faster still: under Food and Agricultural Code section 31621, the hearing on a petition is held within no less than five working days nor more than ten working days after service of notice, and County Code section 10.37.110 sets the same five-to-ten working day window for County administrative hearings (County Code 10.37.110). Those proceedings are not compensation claims, but they are where much of the useful record is created, and they can conclude long before a civil claim is prepared.
Evidence in this city expires for practical reasons rather than statutory ones. Building camera footage is often overwritten. Witnesses in apartment buildings and parks move. Quarantine ends in ten days for dogs and cats under the County provisions described in the rabies manual, and the animal's location afterward may change (quarantine provisions). County Veterinary Public Health notes the importance of recording the current location of the biting animal in a report (Reporting Animal Bites).
This page summarizes published limitations statutes and claim-presentation provisions for general information. It is not legal advice, and no date on this page should be applied to a particular set of facts without professional review. Questions belong with the attorney who advertises on this site.
Dog Bite Statute of Limitations Lawyer in Los Angeles. Call (213) 953-1047 and a Los Angeles lawyer reviews the claim and the deadline that applies. Nothing is signed on that call.
Call (213) 953-1047A Public Health Reports study using Los Angeles County Department of Public Health surveillance data recorded 23,103 reported dog bites from 2009 through 2011, 88% of 26,169 reported animal-to-human bites; Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon were excluded because they had separate health departments and rabies-control protocols.
Why it matters: The dated data shows why the correct reporting jurisdiction matters and why an incident record should identify the exact city and agency rather than use “Los Angeles” as a catch-all.
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Los Angeles Municipal Code section 63.44 bars animals from City parks except in listed situations, including licensed dogs led by a leash not more than six feet long and licensed dogs under the control of a competent person inside designated dog exercise and training areas. The ordinance names specific sites, among them Laurel Canyon Park from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and from 3:00 p.m. until park closing, the fenced area at Silver Lake Recreation Center, roughly ten acres of the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area on Victory Boulevard near White Oak Avenue, about ninety acres of Runyon Canyon Park, and a 1.4-acre fenced portion of Barrington Park.
Why it matters: Whether a dog was permitted to be off leash at the moment of an attack depends on the exact park, the exact fenced area and sometimes the time of day, so the location detail in a park incident carries more weight here than a general statement about dog parks.
Source: codelibrary.amlegal.com
The County rabies manual states that County Code section 11.04.210 sets a quarantine of at least fourteen days, reduced to ten days for dogs and cats, with release possible after five days if a veterinarian examines the animal on the fifth day or later and certifies no clinical signs of rabies. Section 11.04.220 allows the confinement at home or in a licensed boarding kennel, and section 11.04.225 sets a fifty-dollar confinement fee that is recovered when the bitten person was neither the owner nor the custodian of the animal and was not engaged in illegal activity.
Why it matters: The quarantine file is a dated public record of where the animal was kept in the days after a bite, and the confinement fee line can indicate how the agency recorded the bitten person's relationship to the animal.
Source: publichealth.lacounty.gov
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