Does the State of Indiana Follow the “One Free Bite Rule” for dogs?
In the State of Indiana, the owner of a dog is bound to know the natural propensities of dogs, and if those propensities are of the kind which reasonably might be expected to cause injury, the owner must use reasonable care to prevent such injuries from occurring. Thus, an owner of a dog is bound to know that a dog might become excited or confused under certain circumstances and must use reasonable care to prevent a mishap, so there is NO one free dog bite for owners of dogs in the State of Indiana. However, where there is no evidence of an owner’s actual knowledge that his or her dog has dangerous propensities, the owner may nonetheless be held liable provided there is evidence that the particular breed to which the dog belongs has dangerous propensities. And this is so even where the owner’s dog has never before attacked or bitten anyone. In essence, a jury may not infer that an owner knew or should have known of a dog’s dangerous or vicious propensities from the fact of a first time, unprovoked biting. Rather in such an instance, a jury may infer that the owner knew or should have known of the dog’s dangerous or vicious propensities only where evidence shows that the particular breed to which the owner’s dog belongs is known to exhibit such tendencies.
What does this really mean? It means that even if the owner is unaware of any specific vicious propensity, the duty owed is the same: that of reasonable care under the circumstances. Reasonable care requires that the care employed and precautions used be commensurate with the danger involved under the circumstances of a particular case. The necessary precautions to be observed or foresight to be exercised are usually questions to be resolved by the jury. Any given method of restraining a dog may or may not be adequate under the particular facts of a particular case. Each set of facts relating to a dog bite stands on its own, since most dog bites will have some unique set of facts as to how the bite happened