Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
Licensed in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
Children are bitten differently. A small child stands at face height to a large dog, and the injuries land on parts of the body where a scar does not fade into the background.
There is also a legal point that surprises families, and it works against them rather than for them. The assumption that a child’s claim can wait until adulthood does not hold in Louisiana for this kind of case.
At Lukov Injury Law, we would rather a parent asked the deadline question early and found it did not apply than the reverse.
The sections below set out the owner’s responsibility, the deadline as the Civil Code actually writes it, how fault sharing reaches a child, and what a parent can claim separately. Contact us today to talk through what happened.
The rule is the same rule, and it is a strict one. A child’s dog bite claim is measured against the same article as an adult’s.
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.”
That sits apart from paragraph A, which governs animals and requires a showing that the owner knew or should have known the animal’s behavior would cause damage, that the damage could have been prevented by reasonable care, and that the owner failed to exercise it. Dogs are carved out of that structure into a stricter one.
Two conditions remain inside the dog rule, and both apply whatever the age of the person bitten:
The article was amended by Acts 2025, No. 488, which is recent enough that older summaries may not reflect it.
Yes, and this is the point to read carefully.
La. C.C. art. 3493.1, enacted by Acts 2024, No. 423 and effective July 1, 2024, provides that “delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years,” and that “this prescription commences to run from the day that injury or damage is sustained.”
The article then contains a single carve-out for minors, and it is written narrowly. Prescription “does not run against minors or interdicts in actions involving permanent disability and brought pursuant to the Louisiana Products Liability Act or state law governing product liability actions in effect at the time of the injury or damage.”
Read the conditions in that sentence together. The suspension applies to actions involving permanent disability brought under product liability law. A dog bite claim is neither, so the two years run in the ordinary way from the day the injury was sustained.
The practical consequence for a family is direct. Waiting until a child is older, or until the long-term effect of a scar can be assessed, is not a neutral choice. Which period governs a particular claim depends on when the cause of action arose, so confirm the position with a lawyer rather than assuming it, but the starting position is that the clock is running.
Fault sharing is not switched off because the injured person is young, and the framework changed recently.
La. C.C. art. 2323 requires that the degree or percentage of fault attributable to all persons causing or contributing to the injury be determined, whether or not each is a party to the action. 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 figure, damages are “reduced in proportion to the degree or percentage of negligence attributable to the person suffering the injury.”
That structure came in with Acts 2025, No. 15, effective January 1, 2026, so material describing Louisiana as a pure comparative fault state no longer reflects the article as amended.
There is a second route by which a child’s conduct can matter, and it sits inside the dog rule itself. Art. 2321(B) removes from strict liability injuries that “resulted from the injured person’s provocation of the dog.” Provocation is therefore a condition of the rule rather than a reduction applied afterward.
Both questions turn on what actually happened, which is why an account taken from the child and from any witness while the memory is fresh is worth more than one assembled later.
A child’s own account has a further limitation worth planning around. An account first given six months afterward carries the shape of the conversations that happened in between. Writing down what the child said on the day, in the child’s own words, preserves something that cannot be recreated.
A child does not bring an action personally. The claim is pursued on the child’s behalf by a parent or another person with authority to act for the child, and settlements involving a minor involve additional steps that do not arise for an adult.
The arrangements depend on the family’s circumstances, including whether both parents are involved and who has authority. This is one of the areas where the position should be confirmed for the particular family rather than assumed, and it is a practical reason to raise a child’s claim with a lawyer early rather than close to a deadline.
What holds across those arrangements is that the two-year period discussed above runs regardless of these arrangements. Sorting out who acts for the child is a step inside the period, not an extension of it.
If the parent witnessed the attack, or came upon the scene soon afterward, there is a separate route.
La. C.C. art. 2315.6 allows certain relatives who “view an event causing injury to another person, or who come upon the scene of the event soon thereafter” to recover damages for their own mental anguish or emotional distress. The listed categories include “the father and mother of the injured person, or either of them,” along with a spouse, children, grandchildren, siblings and grandparents.
The standard is demanding and the article states it. The injured person must suffer such harm that one can reasonably expect a person in the claimant’s position to suffer serious mental anguish or emotional distress, and the claimant’s own distress “must be severe, debilitating, and foreseeable.” The article closes by providing that such damages “shall be recovered only in accordance with this Article.”
A parent who was not present and did not come upon the scene soon afterward falls outside the article, however the events affected them. That is the line the Code draws.
The same records as for an adult, plus a set that only the family can create.
La. C.C. art. 2315(B) ties damages for future medical treatment, services, surveillance or procedures to a “manifest physical or mental injury or disease.” For a child, manifest means documented as it developed, which is a task that runs over time rather than one completed at a single appointment.
Scarring on a child is the clearest example of why that matters. A wound on a growing body may not settle the way an adult’s does, so the appearance at six months is not necessarily the eventual result. The record that carries this is a sequence of comparable photographs rather than a single assessment, and it is built by the family because nobody else is positioned to take them.
That sits in tension with the deadline set out above, and the tension is real rather than something to be resolved neatly. The two-year period runs from the day the injury was sustained, while the picture of a child’s scarring is still developing at the point it expires. Raising the claim early does not require the picture to be complete. It requires the record to have been started.
Where the attack involved a fall or a head strike as well as a bite, that assessment runs on its own track, and our page on traumatic brain injury sets out how it is documented.
The instinct to wait and see how a child heals is a reasonable one, and in Louisiana it does not buy time. The two-year period runs from the day the injury was sustained, and the carve-out for minors is written for product liability rather than for a dog bite. At Lukov Injury Law, we would rather look at a child’s case early and set the record up properly than meet it near a deadline.
You work directly with Abby Lukov, not a case manager, and the first conversation costs nothing. Call us today to talk through what happened and what the records show.
For a dog bite claim, yes. La. C.C. art. 3493.1 sets a two-year liberative prescription running from the day the injury or damage is sustained. Its carve-out suspends prescription for minors and interdicts only in actions involving permanent disability brought under the Louisiana Products Liability Act or state product liability law, which does not cover a dog bite claim.
The article does not provide for that in this kind of case. Prescription commences from the day the injury is sustained, and the minors carve-out is limited to product liability actions involving permanent disability. 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 assumed.
La. C.C. art. 2321(B) provides that the owner of a dog is strictly liable for damages for injuries caused by the dog which the owner could have prevented and which did not result from the injured person’s provocation of the dog. The rule is the same whatever the age of the person bitten, and both of those conditions remain part of it.
Provocation is written into the rule itself. La. C.C. art. 2321(B) does not reach injuries that resulted from the injured person’s provocation of the dog. Separately, La. C.C. art. 2323 requires the percentage of fault of each contributing person to be determined, with no recovery where the injured person’s share is fifty-one percent or more.
Under La. C.C. art. 2323, where the negligence attributable to the person suffering injury is equal to or greater than fifty-one percent, that person is not entitled to recover damages. Below that figure, damages are reduced in proportion to that percentage. The structure took effect January 1, 2026 under Acts 2025, No. 15.
A child does not bring an action personally. The claim is pursued on the child’s behalf by a parent or another person with authority to act for the child, and a settlement involving a minor involves additional steps. The arrangements depend on the family’s circumstances and should be confirmed for the particular case.
La. C.C. art. 2315.6 allows a father or mother who viewed the event, or who came upon the scene soon thereafter, to recover for their own mental anguish or emotional distress. The article requires that the distress be severe, debilitating, and foreseeable, and provides that such damages are recoverable only in accordance with it.
The medical file from the first visit, photographs of the wound before treatment and at intervals afterward, school observations, a parent’s own notes on sleep and behavior, and any animal control reference number. La. C.C. art. 2315(B) ties future treatment costs to a manifest injury, and a record built as the injury develops is what shows one.
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.
