Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
A large dog running at full speed does not need to bite to break a hip. It is a familiar scenario on a sidewalk or in a park: the animal is friendly, the collision is accidental, and the person on the ground has a fracture.
People in that position assume there is nothing to discuss because no skin was broken. The Civil Code does not draw the line where that assumption puts it.
At Lukov Injury Law, we look at what the rule actually says before deciding whether an incident fits it.
The sections below work through the text of the dog rule, what it requires, how a knockdown is proved differently, and where fault sharing comes in. Contact us today to talk through what happened.
It does not, and that is the starting point.
La. C.C. art. 2321(B) provides that “the owner of a dog is strictly liable for damages for injuries to persons or property caused by the dog and which the owner could have prevented and which did not result from the injured person’s provocation of the dog.”
Read the operative words. The rule speaks of injuries to persons or property caused by the dog. It does not describe a mechanism, and it does not use the word bite. An injury caused by a dog colliding with a person is, on the face of the article, within that description.
That is a textual point rather than a prediction about any particular case. Whether a specific incident falls inside the rule depends on the facts, including the two conditions set out in the next section. But the common assumption that a claim requires a puncture wound does not come from the article.
The provision was amended by Acts 2025, No. 488, so it is worth reading in its current form.
Two conditions sit inside the same sentence as the strict liability, and both have to be satisfied.
Strict liability means the owner’s care is not the measure in the way it is elsewhere. It does not mean an owner answers for every injury involving their animal regardless of circumstances.
The preventability condition is worth unpacking, because it is where the preventability question is answered. It is not asking whether the owner meant for the collision to happen. It asks whether the situation was one the owner had the ability to control: a leash in hand or looped over a fence post, a gate that latched or did not, a dog under command or a dog running loose in an open space. Each of those is a fact that a photograph, a witness, or the owner’s own account can establish, and each of them sits inside the rule rather than alongside it.
It is worth contrasting the neighboring paragraph. Under art. 2321(A), the owner of an animal is answerable “only upon a showing that the owner knew or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have known that his animal’s behavior would cause damage, that the damage could have been prevented by the exercise of reasonable care, and that the owner failed to exercise such reasonable care.” Dogs are lifted out of that three-part showing.
The law may be the same, but the evidence is not, and this is where these claims are won or lost as a practical matter.
A bite leaves a wound that is photographed, cleaned and recorded, and the wound itself connects the injury to the animal. A knockdown leaves a fracture, a head strike or a soft tissue injury that looks identical to any other fall.
None of that changes the rule. It changes what has to be captured, and it is the reason to say plainly at the first medical contact that a dog caused the fall.
Timing compounds the problem. A person who is knocked down in a public place may be helped up by strangers who then leave, and the owner may apologize and walk on before anyone thinks to exchange details. Within an hour the only people who saw what happened have dispersed. That is a different situation from a bite, where the wound itself forces an immediate response and keeps people in place long enough for names to be taken.
The article names the owner, and more than one person can be involved in a single incident.
Where two or more persons contributed, La. C.C. art. 2324(B) provides that liability, if not solidary under paragraph A, “shall be a joint and divisible obligation,” and that a joint tortfeasor “shall not be liable for more than his degree of fault.” The same article provides at paragraph C that interruption of prescription against one joint tortfeasor is effective against all joint tortfeasors.
Art. 2321(D) adds a further point that belongs in a knockdown case: “Nothing in this Article shall preclude the court from the application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in an appropriate case.” Whether a case is an appropriate one is a matter for a court on its own facts.
Establishing who held responsibility for the animal at the moment it happened is therefore part of the inquiry, and it is answered by evidence about control rather than by ownership records alone.
It can, and the framework changed recently enough that older material gets it wrong.
La. C.C. art. 2323 requires the degree or percentage of fault attributable to all persons causing or contributing to the injury to be determined, whether or not each is a party. Where the negligence attributable to the injured person is “equal to or greater than fifty-one percent,” that person “shall not be entitled to recover damages.” Below that, damages are “reduced in proportion to the degree or percentage of negligence attributable to the person suffering the injury.”
That structure took effect on January 1, 2026 under Acts 2025, No. 15. Louisiana material written earlier may describe a pure comparative fault system that the amended article no longer reflects.
Two questions therefore run alongside each other in a knockdown case: whether the injured person provoked the dog, which is a condition inside art. 2321(B), and what share of fault is attributable to each person under art. 2323. They are separate tests and a case can turn on either.
A knockdown raises the second question in a way a bite may not. Where the injured person was moving, carrying something, or stepped into the path of a running animal, that conduct is available to be weighed under art. 2323 even where it falls well short of provocation under art. 2321(B). Both questions are answered by the same account of the seconds before the collision, which is another reason to write that account down on the day.
Because the injury does not identify its own cause, the record has to. That is the practical difference between a knockdown and a dog bite claim, where the wound does part of the work.
The deadline is the same as for any delictual action. La. C.C. art. 3493.1 sets a liberative prescription of two years, running “from the day that injury or damage is sustained.” Which period governs a particular claim depends on when the cause of action arose, so the position should be confirmed with a lawyer rather than taken from a general article.
Where the fall produced a head injury, that runs on its own assessment track, and our page on traumatic brain injury sets out how it is documented.
The question is not whether a dog bit someone. It is whether an injury was caused by a dog, whether the owner could have prevented it, and whether it resulted from provocation. A knockdown can raise every one of those questions, and each of them is answered by evidence rather than by assumption. At Lukov Injury Law, we look at a dog bite file and a knockdown file the same way, against the same article.
You work directly with Abby Lukov, not a case manager, and the first conversation costs nothing. Call us today to talk through the incident and what was recorded.
The article does not use the word bite. La. C.C. art. 2321(B) refers to strict liability for “injuries to persons or property caused by the dog” which the owner could have prevented and which did not result from the injured person’s provocation. Whether a particular incident falls within it depends on the facts of that incident.
It means the owner’s exercise of care is not the measure in the way it is for animals under paragraph A of the same article, which requires a showing of knowledge, preventability and a failure of reasonable care. Paragraph B nonetheless keeps two conditions: that the owner could have prevented the injury, and that it did not result from provocation.
The article is written around whether the injury was caused by the dog, whether the owner could have prevented it, and whether the injured person provoked the animal. The dog’s temperament is not one of the conditions stated in the paragraph, though the circumstances of control are relevant to whether the owner could have prevented what happened.
Through the account, witnesses, the scene and the medical record, since the injury itself does not identify its cause the way a bite wound does. Naming the dog as the mechanism at the first medical contact, taking witness details at the time, photographing the location, and reporting to animal control are the practical steps.
It makes the file ambiguous rather than fatal, which is why the mechanism is worth stating clearly at the first contact and correcting as early as possible if it was recorded incompletely. Witness accounts and any animal control report can support the sequence independently of the intake note.
Where two or more persons contributed, La. C.C. art. 2324(B) provides that liability, if not solidary under paragraph A, is a joint and divisible obligation, and that a joint tortfeasor is not liable for more than his degree of fault. Paragraph C provides that interruption of prescription against one joint tortfeasor is effective against all of them.
La. C.C. art. 2323 requires the percentage of fault of every contributing person to be determined. Where the negligence attributable to the injured person is fifty-one percent or more, that person is not entitled to recover damages, and below that the recovery is reduced in proportion. The structure took effect January 1, 2026 under Acts 2025, No. 15.
The general rule applies. La. C.C. art. 3493.1 sets a liberative prescription of two years for delictual actions, commencing from the day that injury or damage is sustained. It was enacted by Acts 2024, No. 423, effective July 1, 2024. Which period governs a particular claim depends on when the cause of action arose, so confirm the position with a lawyer.
Disclaimer: This article provides general information and should not be treated as legal advice. Laws change over time, and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this article or contacting Lukov Injury Law LLC. For advice about your situation, contact a qualified attorney. Time limits apply to legal claims, so do not delay in seeking legal help.
