The Michigan Dog Bite Guide

Michigan's dog-bite statute, MCL 287.351, looks like it settles everything. A dog bites you, the owner pays. The fights are over two words, provocation and trespassing. In 2023 the Court of Appeals answered a question Michigan courts had left open for decades and held that a dog can count as a dangerous condition on the land, which opens a claim against a property owner. The seven cases below, newest first, are where those fights get decided.

Tripp v. Baker, 2023

Michigan Court of Appeals, decided April 13, 2023, Docket No. 360960 (published)

Chester Tripp was trimming bushes in his mother's backyard in Tecumseh. He rested his hand on top of a chain-link fence. His neighbor's dog pushed its head through a broken section of the wooden privacy fence next to it and bit his hand. The wound got badly infected. He needed serious medical care.

He sued the dog's owner under the statute. He also sued the landlord who owned the rental and had installed the fence. The Court of Appeals used that second claim to answer a question Michigan courts had left open for decades. A dog counts as a "condition on the land" for premises liability. To hold a property owner responsible on that theory, you have to show the dog was the dangerous condition and that the defendant knew about the dog's dangerous tendencies.

The landlord still won, and the reason matters more than the ruling. A surveyor's affidavit put the chain-link fence entirely on the tenant's parcel. Tripp said the neighbors had treated it as a shared boundary, but he produced nothing to back that up. The court held he was a trespasser at the moment of the bite. Where your feet were standing is not a technicality. It is often the whole case, and it gets decided on surveys, photographs, and fence lines nobody thinks to preserve.

Kelsey v. Lint, 2017

Michigan Court of Appeals, decided December 14, 2017, 322 Mich App 364; 912 NW2d 862

Carolyn Kelsey went to a garage sale at a house in Montcalm County. She came back the next day to ask about something she had seen. She got out of her car and the homeowner's dog bit her leg. The trial judge threw the case out and called her a trespasser, because the garage sale was over and nobody had invited her back.

The Court of Appeals reversed. The statute protects a person who is on public property or lawfully on private property, and that includes anyone there as an invitee or a licensee. Permission does not have to be spoken. Michigan recognizes an implied license that lets an ordinary person walk up a driveway and knock on a front door. The driveway here was open and ungated with no signs barring entry. A "no soliciting" sign hung on a garage door nobody could read until they reached it, and Kelsey was bitten before she got that far.

Losing her invitee status when the sale ended did not erase her license as a member of the public. The court sent the question of her status to a jury. Under Kelsey, "you were trespassing" is a defense the property owner has to prove, not simply assert.

Koivisto v. Davis, 2008

Michigan Court of Appeals, decided January 8, 2008, 277 Mich App 492; 745 NW2d 824

Kathy Koivisto was on her own deck with coffee, a newspaper, and her two cats. Two huskies that had escaped a boarding kennel came onto her property and went after the cats. She ran barefoot into the woods. She kicked the dogs. She put her fingers in one dog's eyes to make it let go. She ended up with 28 puncture wounds in her hands, an infection, and possible permanent nerve damage in her thumb. One cat died days later.

The owners argued she provoked the attack on herself. The trial court agreed and dismissed her case. The Court of Appeals reversed and held that a dog already in a state of attack cannot be provoked. Reacting to a dog's violent behavior is not provocation under the statute. The court also refused to let the defense turn it into a debate about cats. She could have been protecting a neighbor's baby, a newspaper, or a rose bush and the answer would be the same. The court found no requirement that she retreat or submit.

Brans v. Extrom, 2005

Michigan Court of Appeals, decided July 5, 2005, 266 Mich App 216; 701 NW2d 163

Kathleen Brans was helping family get a yard ready for a wedding. She and her brother-in-law were carrying a section of chicken wire out of a dog kennel. She was walking backward. She stepped on the family's elderly Australian Shepherd. The dog yelped and bit her leg.

The jury was told that provocation includes unintentional acts. It found provocation and the defense won. The Court of Appeals affirmed and held that a person can commit unintentional acts provocative enough to relieve a dog owner of liability. Provocation looks at the act and what it caused, not at what the injured person meant to do.

This is the ruling that hurts good people. Nobody steps on a dog on purpose. Read alongside Koivisto, the line becomes clearer. Brans held that an unintentional act can still be provocation. Koivisto held that reacting to a dog already in a state of attack is not. Provocation stays a question of fact for the jury, which is why the details of the first three seconds matter so much.

Hill v. Sacka, 2003

Michigan Court of Appeals, decided July 1, 2003, 256 Mich App 443; 666 NW2d 282

A German shepherd chained to a tree in a yard his family was visiting mauled two-year-old Kyle Hill. He walked toward the dog waving his arms. His father shouted, then ran, and did not get there in time. Kyle needed surgery on three areas of his head and face and was left with significant scarring.

The jury found the bite happened without provocation and awarded Kyle damages. It also found his father 75 percent negligent. The defense asked the court to cut the boy's award by that 75 percent. The trial court refused, and the Court of Appeals agreed. Michigan's comparative fault statutes, MCL 600.2957 and MCL 600.6304, do not apply to a claim under the dog-bite statute, which the court described as absolute liability absent provocation.

For a parent, that is worth understanding. An insurer may try to shift blame onto whoever was supervising a child. The Hill court held that the comparative fault statutes do not apply to a dog-bite statute claim, so the jury's 75 percent finding against the father did not reduce Kyle's award.

Trager v. Thor, 1994

Michigan Supreme Court, decided May 17, 1994, 445 Mich 95; 516 NW2d 69

A grandfather was watching his son's house for the afternoon. He put the family sheepdog in a bedroom and shut the door before heading outside. A neighbor girl ended up inside the house anyway. The dog bit and scratched her. He already knew the dog had bitten a child once before.

The Michigan Supreme Court held that common-law strict liability reaches only an owner or a keeper, meaning someone with real proprietary control over the animal. A temporary caretaker does not qualify. But the court kept a negligence claim alive against him. Michigan recognizes a negligence action when someone controls an animal ineffectively in a situation where injury could reasonably be expected and injury follows.

Dogs get left with sitters, relatives, kennels, and friends all the time. Trager is why an owner, a keeper, and a temporary caretaker each get analyzed under a different theory.

Nicholes v. Lorenz, 1976

Michigan Supreme Court, decided January 27, 1976, 396 Mich 53; 237 NW2d 468

A seven-year-old girl named Mary was near a chained dog while her owner was away fishing. Another child pushed her forward. She stepped on the dog's tail and it bit her on the nose. At trial her lawyers called neighbor after neighbor to describe the dog's history. Fifty-five of 152 transcript pages went to that testimony.

This was the Supreme Court's first reading of the 1939 statute, and it is the background the later cases sit on. It cut in both directions. The statute deliberately removed proof of a dog's past viciousness and the owner's knowledge of it as conditions of liability. Michigan is not a "one bite" state, and a plaintiff does not have to show the dog had a record. For the same reason, the court held that piling on evidence of the dog's past was irrelevant and prejudicial, and it let the reversal stand for a new trial.

Read together, these cases turn on facts that disappear fast. Where you stood. What the dog did first. Who was holding the leash. These courts decided them on survey lines, photographs, medical records, and what people said in the first days after the bite. If a dog bit you or your child in Michigan, call 844-ASK-AZZO (844-275-2996) and ask your question. Our intake team takes your information, gathers what happened and where, and routes your question to the right person at the firm. No pressure.

Lauren Sitto Azzo, lead attorney at Azzo Law, PLLC, is responsible for the content of this page. This section is general information about Michigan court decisions and not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.