Dog Bite Strict Liability Lawyers in Summerville

The Governor signed Act No. 62 on June 12, 2013, and it replaced the text of Section 47-3-110. Before then, the statute's only exception sat in a single closing sentence. It said that if a person "provokes a dog into attacking him," the owner "is not liable." That sentence spoke only of the owner. Current subsection (B) says instead that the whole section "does not apply," wording that is not limited to owners.

The provocation clause changed too. Subsection (B)(1) now covers a victim who "provoked or harassed" the dog, adding harassment to the old wording. It also requires that the provocation be "the proximate cause of the attack," the legal term for a direct and foreseeable cause. Act No. 62 added the police dog exception at the same time. Harris and Clea both quote the older wording, so any line borrowed from them needs checking against the current text.

Harris also set the test for a keeper. The phrase "care or keeping" requires conduct that "manifests an acceptance of responsibility" for the dog. For keepers, the Court said, the statute retains the common law idea of duty. Common law means rules that judges developed case by case, and under it a keeper's liability depends on what the keeper actually took on. A footnote adds that a keeper does not always have to be a property owner.

Sitters, Walkers and Boarding Businesses

A college student hired to let a dog out twice a day has taken charge of it in a concrete way. So has a boarding business that takes the dog into its runs overnight. Either may qualify as a keeper, while the owner remains answerable under Harris. The booking confirmation, the payment record and any text messages can show who took charge of the dog and when.

Relatives Who Live With the Dog and Tend It

Harris discussed Nesbitt v. Lewis, a 1999 Court of Appeals case about three co-owners of one house. The mother owned the dogs and was liable for that reason alone. Her son lived there, took the dogs to the veterinarian, fed them and sometimes played with them. Harris described him as liable as a co-owner who controlled the premises and had the dogs in his care. A relative who lives with a dog and tends it may be a keeper in the same way.

Bruce v. Durney, a 2000 Court of Appeals decision, marks where that duty stops. A couple lived rent-free on land owned by the wife's father, under a spoken arrangement with no lease. The court held that arrangement still made him their landlord. A landlord generally is not liable for a tenant's dog kept on leased property. He also was not a keeper, since the couple provided the dog's care and custody while he visited about once a week.

Letting the dog stay on his land showed some control, the court said, but not enough to make him its keeper. A landlord's own conduct can still create liability outside the statute, such as leaving a known threat in a common area. Frost Law Group pursues premises liability claims against property owners whose own choices contributed to an attack. Those claims rest on negligence, meaning carelessness, rather than on the dog bite statute.

The statute uses "public place" without defining it. A sidewalk, a road shoulder or a town park fits the ordinary meaning of the words. Harder cases sit at the edges, such as a store's parking lot or a private road inside a subdivision. There, the claim may rest on lawful presence instead, since a shopper or a guest usually arrives by invitation. Once location is settled, Dog Bite Strict Liability Lawyers in Summerville turn to ownership and damages.

For private property, subsection (A) spells out who counts as lawfully present, and it names two groups. A person who fits neither falls outside the statute, even when a dog causes real harm. Someone who climbs a back fence with no invitation and no legal duty is the plain case. The dangerous animal article keeps a separate list with different terms in Section 47-3-770, and that list speaks only to its own article.

A Duty Imposed by State, Local or Federal Law

The first group is a person whose visit carries out a duty under South Carolina statutes, a town or county ordinance, or federal law. Postal regulations appear by name, which covers a letter carrier walking up to a porch mailbox. Other workers may qualify when a specific statute or ordinance required their visit to that property. Lawful presence under this route depends on naming that law.

An Invitation From the Owner, a Tenant or a Resident

The second group covers anyone present by invitation, "express or implied," of the property owner or a lawful tenant or resident. The invitation need not come from the dog's owner. In Clea v. Odom, a mother had brought her children to visit her sister, who lived at a two-building apartment complex. Another tenant's dog, chained in a common area, attacked her two-year-old son. The family's host was her sister, a resident, not the landlord or the dog's owner.

The first part asks whether the victim "provoked or harassed" the dog. The second asks whether that provocation was "the proximate cause of the attack." Suppose a visitor yells at a dog through a fence and leaves, and the dog bites him hours later after the owner invites him inside. The earlier yelling might meet the first part and still fail the second.

Tara L. Frost heard competing accounts of the same events during her service as a Dorchester County Magistrate Judge, which ran from July 2022 until August 2025. That service showed her how a judge weighs each version, the preparation behind it and the credibility of the person telling it.

Subsection (B)(2) applies only while a police dog is on duty, "working in a law enforcement capacity" for a government agency and performing its official duties. All six conditions must hold, because the list joins them with "and." Harris involved a police dog too, but that dog was boarded at a clinic rather than working, and the case predates the 2013 exception. The conditions divide into how the dog was deployed and where its use went too far.

Deployment Under a Command and a Written Policy

The first four conditions trace the chain of decisions behind the bite. Frost Law Group can compare the agency's records with incident reports and any video of the scene. Each condition points to a record or a witness that the agency holds, such as a training file, a policy manual or the handler.

A Lawful Command and State Training Standards

The attack must be "in direct and complete compliance with the lawful command" of a qualified canine officer. Both the dog's training and its credentials must satisfy the South Carolina Law Enforcement Training Council's standards. A dog that bites after its handler calls it off, or with no command at all, raises a question under the first condition.

A Written Policy the Handler and Dog Followed

The agency must have adopted a written policy on the necessary and appropriate use of its dogs. Neither the handler nor the dog may have violated it. A copy of that policy lets a lawyer compare its terms with what witnesses and video show.

Excessive Force and Third-Party Bystanders

The last two conditions set outer limits. The exception fails when the handler's or dog's actions amount to excessive force. It also never reaches a bite on a third-party bystander, a term the statute leaves undefined. Picture a patrol dog tracking a suspect across backyards that bites a homeowner watering plants. Whether that homeowner counts as a bystander depends on what the evidence shows about the search. A claim against a government agency also answers to the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, which sets its own filing deadlines and damages caps.

The statute does not define "otherwise attacked." In ordinary usage, the words may describe a dog that knocks a person down, rakes an arm with its claws or pins someone against a car. Suppose a large dog bolts from a driveway at a jogger on 5th Street North, part of US 78, and she falls while dodging it. Frost Law Group can gather proof of what the dog did in the seconds before the fall. Still, a charge that never makes contact presents a closer question than a knockdown does.

A fall can do more damage than a bite. A fractured hip, a torn knee ligament or a head strike on pavement may call for surgery and physical therapy. Dog Bite Strict Liability Lawyers in Summerville document those injuries with the same care as any bite.

Witnesses carry much of the weight, because a fall leaves no tooth marks to photograph. Footage from a home camera or a passing car can show the dog's speed, direction and posture. Torn clothing, claw marks and a physician's note on how the injury happened fill in the rest. Home systems record over old footage and memories dim, so those pieces are worth collecting early.

The dangerous animal article, which runs from Section 47-3-710 to Section 47-3-770, defines related terms its own way. One route to dangerous animal status covers unprovoked acts, away from the animal's required confinement, that lead a person "to reasonably believe" it will attack. That article limits "bodily injury" to broken bones, lacerations, skin punctures or an injury resulting in death. Those definitions govern only within that article, and Section 47-3-110 sits in a different one. An insurer may still argue that a sprain is too minor to count under that definition. That argument borrows a definition from another article.