Georgia Dog Bite Case Law: 30 Court Decisions That Hold Owners Accountable

Georgia does not make dog owners automatically liable for a bite; as one decision below puts it, “Georgia does not impose strict liability upon dog owners.” Under OCGA § 51-2-7, as the Supreme Court of Georgia has read it, a person hurt by a dog must show that the owner or keeper knew of the dog’s vicious or dangerous propensity or, where a local ordinance required the dog to be leashed or at heel, knew that it was unrestrained. The injured person must also show careless management or allowing the animal to go at liberty, causation and the absence of provocation. The 30 appellate decisions below show how that rule has been applied: what counts as notice of a dog’s propensity, how leash ordinances work, when a landlord, property manager or employer answers for a dog, when a promise to restrain a dog creates a duty, when the injured person’s own conduct bars recovery, and how one large verdict fared on appeal.

The title of this page speaks of holding owners accountable. By this page’s count, 12 of the decisions favored the injured person on the question appealed, including a jury verdict of $5,620,159.99 whose liability finding was upheld. Seventeen favored the owner or another defendant, for reasons that included a lack of evidence that the defendant knew of the dog’s propensity, the limits on a landlord’s liability, and the injured person’s assumption of the risk, and one was split. Each summary reports what the court decided and links to the opinion in the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter text or in the court’s own PDF as archived by CourtListener.

A Note on the Statute and Later Decisions

The text of § 51-2-7 quoted below is the text the Supreme Court of Georgia quoted in 2019 and the Court of Appeals quoted in 2025. The annual summaries of general statutes enacted in 2024, 2025 and 2026, published by the Georgia General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Counsel, list no amendment to § 51-2-7. In 2020 the Supreme Court disapproved Court of Appeals decisions to the extent they held that an owner’s knowledge does not matter when a dog runs loose in violation of a leash ordinance; the summaries below note where that affects a decision. Evidence and statutory rulings in the older decisions applied the law in force when each case was decided.

The Statute and the Knowledge Rule

As the courts quoted it in 2019 and 2025, § 51-2-7 provides in part: “A person who owns or keeps a vicious or dangerous animal of any kind and who, by careless management or by allowing the animal to go at liberty, causes injury to another person who does not provoke the injury by his own act may be liable in damages to the person so injured. In proving vicious propensity, it shall be sufficient to show that the animal was required to be at heel or on a leash by an ordinance of a city, county, or consolidated government, and the said animal was at the time of the occurrence not at heel or on a leash.” The four decisions below explain what the owner must have known.

1. Steagald v. Eason (2017)

Steagald v. Eason, 300 Ga. 717, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 6, 2017

Joshua Eason’s pit bull, Rocks, came to live at his parents’ home, where on its first day it growled and snapped at Cheryl Eason as she tried to feed it and, later that day, growled, barked and snapped at a neighbor, Gary Steagald. About a week later, Rocks, out of its pen on a lead while Joshua played with it in the Easons’ back yard, jumped at Lori Steagald when she approached and extended her arm, and bit her arm and then her leg. The trial court granted the Easons summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, calling the snapping “merely menacing behavior.”

The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed. “Our law does not presume that dogs are vicious or dangerous,” and proof that the owner or keeper knew of the dog’s dangerous propensities is an essential element. But to the extent it implies that knowledge cannot be proved until the dog has actually bitten someone, the term “first bite rule” is “more than a bit misleading.” Quoting an earlier decision, the Court explained that “to infer the requisite knowledge[,] there must be at least one incident that would cause a prudent person to anticipate the actual incident that caused the injury.” A rational jury could find that Rocks’s snapping was an attempt to bite, so whether the Easons knew of a propensity to bite without provocation in the sort of circumstances in which Rocks attacked Lori was a question for a jury. The Court disapproved Hamilton v. Walker (1998) to the extent it required that the dog have done the same act on a prior occasion.

2. S&S Towing & Recovery v. Charnota (2020)

S&S Towing & Recovery, Ltd. v. Charnota, 309 Ga. 117, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 16, 2020

Michael Charnota was walking his leashed dog, Katie, in front of his Paulding County home when a dog named Tucker, which had been kept on the premises of S&S Towing & Recovery, attacked and killed Katie, then followed Charnota into his home and attacked him, seriously injuring him. Tucker had apparently escaped from the towing lot and was not on a leash as the Paulding County Code required. S&S Towing argued that the second sentence of § 51-2-7, which treats an animal running loose in violation of a leash ordinance as vicious, violated procedural due process.

The challenge failed. The second sentence “is definitional and, at most, creates a rebuttable presumption,” the Court held, and it does not remove the knowledge requirement: a plaintiff who shows that a local ordinance required the animal to be restrained and that it was not “must still prove scienter and can do so in two ways: by showing that the owner had knowledge of the animal’s vicious propensity as defined by the common law or by showing that the owner knew that the animal was unrestrained at the time of the injury.” The Court disapproved Court of Appeals decisions to the extent they held the owner’s knowledge immaterial in that situation, affirmed the trial court’s ruling and expressed no opinion on the merits of Charnota’s claim.

3. Torrance v. Brennan (1993)

Torrance v. Brennan, 209 Ga. App. 65, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 15, 1993

The plaintiff agreed to feed her next-door neighbors’ dog while they were out of town, and when she walked within range of the chained dog, it jumped up on her and severely bit her left arm and breast. About a month earlier she had seen the dog jump up on a ten-year-old girl and put its mouth around her arm, and about a week after that she had seen it “use its teeth to rip off” a bicyclist’s pants; Mrs. Torrance was with her both times, and on the day of the attack she said the dog had “nipped” another neighbor. A jury awarded $30,000.

The verdict stood. An owner’s knowledge may be inferred without “an incident involving the exact same conduct and the exact same injury,” the Court of Appeals held, as long as an incident would put a prudent person on notice to anticipate what happened. The three earlier incidents were “the same type of conduct,” and the evidence “was more than sufficient” for the jury. Testimony about the dog breaking loose weeks after the attack should have been excluded, the court added, but the error was harmless.

4. Kringle v. Elliott (2009)

Kringle v. Elliott, 301 Ga. App. 1, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 13, 2009

Seven-year-old Steven Lloyd reached out to pet Cindy Elliott’s golden retriever, Skip, which was chained in her fenced back yard where neighborhood children regularly played, and the dog jumped on him and bit him. The trial court excluded evidence meant to suggest that Skip had attacked a puppy and a kitten and directed a verdict for Elliott.

Excluding the evidence about the animals was within the trial court’s discretion and a directed verdict was proper, the Court of Appeals held. The rule “does not ‘literally require a first bite,'” the court noted, quoting an earlier decision, but the only evidence of a propensity to bite was “speculative at best”: no one saw the dog attack the puppy or the kitten, neither had bite marks, and Steven himself testified that “Skip had never been mean to another person.”

Proving What the Owner Knew

The seven decisions below turned on the evidence of the owner’s knowledge. In four, a statement or an earlier incident was enough to reach a jury; in two, barking or a protective posture was not; and in one, a bite the day before was enough to reach a jury on negligence, although a strict liability claim was rejected.

5. McBride v. Wasik (1986)

McBride v. Wasik, 179 Ga. App. 244, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 29, 1986

The plaintiff was bitten in his own yard after he grabbed the Wasiks’ German shepherd to stop what appeared to him to be an attack on his wife. A neighbor stated that Mr. Wasik had once commanded the dog to attack her and had told her it was a trained attack dog, and the plaintiff testified that earlier that day he overheard Wasik say “he hoped that dog got out and went over there and killed” him. There was no evidence that the dog had bitten anyone before.

Reversing summary judgment for the Wasiks, the Court of Appeals held that the alleged statement on the day of the attack was “sufficient to create a material issue of fact as to whether he knew the dog had a vicious propensity to attack people if set free.” The court applied § 51-2-7 as it read at the time of the incident, when the statute said an owner “shall be liable.”

6. Johnson v. Kvasny (1998)

Johnson v. Kvasny, 230 Ga. App. 162, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 14, 1998

Seven-year-old Brandon Johnson, a guest in the Kvasnys’ home, was bitten by their Rottweiler after he was seen approaching it on his hands and feet. His mother stated in an affidavit that Lynette Kvasny told her “she had told her husband to get rid of the dog because she knew that something like this would happen,” and that the dog had earlier growled at and bitten the Kvasnys’ son. Mrs. Kvasny denied saying that the dog had bitten her son.

The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the Kvasnys. Mrs. Kvasny’s prior statement was admissible, and her statement that she knew “something like this would happen” provided “some proof” that the owners knew of the dog’s propensity to inflict harm in the way Brandon was hurt; the conflict in the testimony was for a jury to resolve.

7. Supan v. Griffin (1999)

Supan v. Griffin, 238 Ga. App. 404, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 2, 1999

Joey Griffin stopped to help Lavern Supan’s 14-year-old son after a motorcycle collision and drove him home. Four or five dogs came out barking, and the son and his mother said the dogs would not bite, but as Griffin’s nine-year-old son, Bo, turned back toward the truck, a Rottweiler and Chow mix charged him from behind and bit his leg. According to a neighbor’s affidavit, about three months earlier the same dogs, including that one, had attacked the neighbor’s small dog on his porch and threatened him, and when he went to Supan about it, Supan told him “to do whatever was necessary … to keep the dogs from attacking.”

Summary judgment was properly denied. Supan’s statement raised “genuine issues of material fact as to Supan’s prior knowledge of his dogs’ tendency to attack humans,” the Court of Appeals held. The court noted that Bo was on the property as a “Good Samaritan” invitee, and with the proof of Supan’s prior knowledge it described “the true test of liability” as Supan’s “superior knowledge of his dog’s temperament.” One judge dissented.

8. Thurmond v. Saffo (1999)

Thurmond v. Saffo, 238 Ga. App. 687, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 25, 1999

Pennie Reid, who visited the Saffos three or four times a week and had known their dog Rocky since he was a puppy, was bitten as she walked through the garage where Rocky was tied. Another visitor, Webb, testified that a week earlier Rocky had walked slowly toward her in the garage and barked, without growling or snapping, and that she jumped over Mrs. Saffo’s car because she thought he was going to attack her; she denied that he actually attacked her. She said she told the Saffos about it before Reid was bitten and that Mrs. Saffo “went outside and got on to [Rocky]”; according to Reid’s mother, Webb said the dog had jumped at her. Reid admitted that she had never known Rocky to bite, attack or chase anyone. The trial court directed a verdict for the Saffos, and Reid’s bankruptcy trustee appealed.

Applying Supan v. Griffin (No. 7 above), the Court of Appeals reversed. A jury could infer that, but for Webb’s move over the car, Rocky would have bitten her, and since the Saffos knew he had tried to attack another person and had scolded him for it, the jury should decide whether they should have anticipated the attack on Reid and whether they carelessly managed the dog by failing to warn visitors. One of the three judges concurred specially, and later decisions cite the case as physical precedent.

9. Swanson v. Tackling (2016)

Swanson v. Tackling, 335 Ga. App. 810, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 24, 2016

During a weekend visit, the Swansons’ Great Dane, Willow, put her head over a gate and barked in the face of seven-year-old J. R. His mother told her boyfriend, Julia Swanson’s son, that she did not want Willow loose around J. R., but did not tell the Swansons. The next morning, as J. R. held a stuffed bunny he wanted to give the dog, Willow bit his arm trying to get the bunny, and then bit his head.

Reversing the denial of summary judgment, the Court of Appeals found no evidence “that Willow had ever bitten or attempted to bite anyone before, that she had a tendency to attack humans, or that the Swansons otherwise had knowledge about her temperament that would have placed them on notice that she would bite someone.” Barking in J. R.’s face was not enough to put the Swansons on notice. There was also no voluntary undertaking to restrain the dog, because there was no evidence that anyone asked the Swansons to restrain Willow or that they promised to do so.

10. Clark v. Joiner (2000)

Clark v. Joiner, 242 Ga. App. 421, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 18, 2000

John Joiner, who came to the Clarks’ house to sell insurance, was bitten on the hand and side by their 12-year-old mixed-breed dog, Bud, after two dogs ran toward him as if they wanted to play. Earlier, an animal control officer trying to remove a stray from under the Clarks’ porch had seen Bud take “a very protective, aggressive posture”; the Clarks were not home at the time, and Mr. Clark testified that the officer told him the dog did not act like it wanted to let her catch the stray.

Nothing in the record put the Clarks on notice, the Court of Appeals held in reversing the denial of summary judgment. There was no evidence that Bud had ever bitten anyone, that he had a tendency to attack humans, or that the Clarks knew anything about his temperament that would have put them on notice that he would bite someone. The Camden County ordinance was not violated, because it treated a dog on its owner’s property as confined. One of the three judges concurred only in the result, writing that the first bite rule should be disavowed insofar as it requires that the dog have caused identical harm before.

11. Cornejo v. Allen (2023)

Cornejo v. Allen, No. A23A0052, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 5, 2023

Cory Allen’s recently acquired dog, Libei, jumped on Efren Cornejo and scratched him at a gathering in Cornejo’s back yard and then bit him, and the next day Allen told him he would find the dog a new home. That afternoon, Libei ran barking from Allen’s yard onto Cornejo’s property, and Cornejo slipped and fell in his driveway while running toward his truck; the dog stopped about ten feet from him. Cornejo sought damages only for the fall, not for the bite.

Strict liability failed but negligence survived. The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment on the strict liability claim because “Georgia does not impose strict liability upon dog owners,” but reversed on negligence, finding “a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether Allen knew of Libei’s vicious propensity.” Quoting Steagald (No. 1 above), the court could not say as a matter of law that the bite the day before would not “cause a prudent person to anticipate the actual event that caused the injury.” It declined to consider contributory negligence and assumption of the risk, which Allen did not argue on appeal.

Leash Laws and Careless Management

Since 1985, § 51-2-7 has allowed a plaintiff to prove a dog’s vicious propensity by showing that a local ordinance required the dog to be leashed or at heel and it was not. In S&S Towing (No. 2 above), the Supreme Court held that the owner’s knowledge must still be shown, either of the dog’s propensity or of the fact that it was unrestrained at the time of the injury. The first three decisions below predate that ruling.

12. Tutak v. Fairley (1991)

Tutak v. Fairley, 198 Ga. App. 307, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 9, 1991

The Fairleys kept their 45-pound mixed-breed German shepherd chained to a doghouse, but it had broken loose on several other occasions and run out to the road barking at passersby, although it had not bitten anyone, and they had never licensed it, taken it to a veterinarian or had it inoculated. While loose in the front yard, the dog, according to the complaint, threw the Fairleys’ young guest Gregory to the ground and bit and scratched him about the face and head.

The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the Fairleys. Under the Glynn County ordinance, an unvaccinated “problem dog” had to be leashed, at heel or beside a competent person and obedient to that person’s commands, unless it was confined within its owner’s property, and although the dog was physically on the property, “it clearly was not ‘confined’ there.” The evidence therefore did “not negate the allegation that the dog had a vicious propensity” within the meaning of § 51-2-7.

13. Huff v. Dyer (2009)

Huff v. Dyer, 297 Ga. App. 761, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 12, 2009

While the Dyers ate breakfast at a Hall County restaurant, their Labrador retriever was chained in the bed of their parked pickup truck, where it could not get its paws onto the rails but could reach its snout over the edge. Jamie Huff approached the dog and was bitten. The trial court directed a verdict against Huff on the dog’s dangerous propensities, and the jury found for the Dyers on her remaining claim.

Finding no error on either issue, the Court of Appeals affirmed. The county ordinance treated a dog restrained within the cargo area of a truck parked on the street as under restraint, and it “does not protect people who approach restrained animals,” so the dog was “under restraint” as a matter of law. Nor was there evidence that the Dyers knew of a vicious propensity: barking when a child was near the truck, and a waitress’s statement that Mrs. Dyer “could have” said the children would not “have to worry about getting bit” if they stayed away from her truck, were not enough. In S&S Towing (2020), the Supreme Court listed a footnote in this decision among the Court of Appeals statements it disapproved to the extent they treated an owner’s knowledge as immaterial when a dog runs loose in violation of an ordinance.

14. Myers v. Ogden (2017)

Myers v. Ogden, No. A17A1779, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 3, 2017

Katie Myers, who is six feet tall and weighs 165 pounds, was walking her 80-pound dog on a two-foot leash in Piedmont Park when the dog lunged and bit John Ogden’s hand as he supervised the unloading of concert equipment. A police officer cited Myers under a city ordinance, and the trial court granted Ogden partial summary judgment on negligence per se under a county leash ordinance.

Myers’s compliance with the leash requirement, her size, her testimony that she could restrain the dog and the absence of evidence of any history of vicious behavior left careless management “for a jury to decide,” the Court of Appeals held in reversing. Accepting the trial court’s reasoning that the ordinance was violated because the dog was not under Myers’s control at the moment it lunged, the court said, “effectively means that every plaintiff in a dog bite case would prevail on the issue of duty and breach of duty.”

15. Dilfield v. Bealing (2020)

Dilfield v. Bealing, 357 Ga. App. 279, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 21, 2020

The Bealings’ five-year-old son, who played at the Dilfields’ home, came home and said the Dilfields’ dog had bitten his leg. The Dilfields put their dogs in crates in another room or in the garage when he came over, and the next day they told the Bealings that more than a year had passed since the dog was vaccinated for rabies; the boy received a series of rabies shots. The trial court denied the Dilfields summary judgment on claims of negligence per se and negligence for failure to vaccinate.

Knowledge was still required, and the Court of Appeals reversed. Drawing on Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso (No. 18 below), it held that “[e]ven assuming that the violation of a vaccination statute or ordinance can be used to hold dog owners liable for injuries resulting from dog bites,” the Bealings had to show that the Dilfields knew of the dog’s propensity to do harm. Barking at people generally is not evidence of a vicious propensity, the court said, and without evidence of why the Dilfields crated the dog, crating alone could not show a dangerous disposition.

16. Espinoza v. Morel (2023)

Espinoza v. Morel, No. A22A1653, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 9, 2023

Socorro Espinoza was checking on Juan Morel and Rosa Ramirez’s German shepherd, Teddy, while they were away for a weekend, and as she gave the dog water it lunged at her and bit her on the head and foot. The owners had left Teddy tethered at a single point to a doghouse in a partially fenced back yard, a method of restraint that violated a Gwinnett County ordinance. No one testified to having seen the dog bite or act aggressively before, and the trial court granted the owners summary judgment.

Applying S&S Towing, the Court of Appeals reversed. Espinoza “was not required to show that the owners had knowledge of Teddy’s vicious propensity as that term is defined by the common law”; she could prove scienter by showing that the owners knew how the dog was restrained and that the restraint violated the ordinance, which the owners’ own testimony supplied.

17. Harris v. Martin (2024)

Harris v. Martin, No. A24A0758, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 16, 2024

Marilyn Martin, who is in her 70s, was walking through her East Point neighborhood when a pit bull named Nino, loose on a lawn, lunged at her and bit her chest. The dog belonged to Dontavious Martin (the record did not show whether he and Marilyn Martin were related) and lived at a house he owned with James Harris. A neighbor who is a police officer had called 911 about the dog’s aggressiveness and reported an earlier escape, but he never spoke to the owners; Dontavious Martin also testified that the dog had gotten loose before. A jury returned a $66,000 verdict and apportioned fault among Dontavious Martin, James Harris and a worker who stayed at the house, whose liability had been established by default.

The verdict was reversed. Although “it is clear that the jury did not believe” the defendants’ testimony, “the record contains no evidence, either direct or circumstantial, showing that the men knew of Nino’s propensity to attack Marilyn in the way that he did,” the Court of Appeals held. Under S&S Towing, there was also no evidence that they knew Nino was unrestrained at the time, because Dontavious Martin was in California and James Harris was not at the house; the court did not decide whether the leash ordinance, which was read to the jury but not admitted in evidence, was properly before it. The award of attorney fees under the offer of settlement statute was reversed with the judgment.

Landlords, Property Managers and Employers

The five decisions below concern two landlords, an apartment manager, a business that kept a guard dog and a retailer whose manager brought his dog to work.

18. Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso (2019)

Tyner v. Matta-Troncoso, 305 Ga. 480, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 11, 2019

Maria Matta-Troncoso was attacked by the Thorntons’ dogs while walking her own dogs about two blocks from the house the Thorntons rented from Gregory Tyner, and she alleged that Tyner had failed to repair a broken gate latch that let the dogs escape. The trial court found that Tyner breached his duty to keep the premises in repair but granted him summary judgment because there was no showing that the dogs had ever displayed vicious propensities or that he knew of any; the Court of Appeals reversed, reasoning that the leash-law sentence of § 51-2-7 relieved the plaintiffs of that showing.

The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed the Court of Appeals. Section 51-2-7 applies only to a person who owns or keeps the animal, the Court held, so the Court of Appeals erred in using its leash-law sentence to relieve the plaintiffs of proving what Tyner knew; the plaintiffs had admitted that the dogs had never bitten or attacked anyone or shown signs of aggression. Assuming that OCGA § 44-7-14, which governs an out-of-possession landlord’s liability for failing to keep the premises in repair, can be used to hold such a landlord liable for dog bites, there was “no evidence that Tyner was aware that the Thorntons’ dogs had any harmful tendencies or propensities,” so the attack was not reasonably foreseeable and the element of causation failed.

19. Lemontree Properties v. Samples (2020)

Lemontree Properties, LLC v. Samples, No. A20A1493, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 27, 2020

Lemontree leased a LaFayette house to tenants who listed a “boxer mix” named Jax on the lease and described their dogs as “well-behaved,” and it approved their request to put up a chain-link dog fence. While a tenant was at work, Jax got out of the enclosure and bit eight-year-old C. S. on the neck in her own yard, causing a concussion and injuries to her neck, ear and scalp. The trial court denied Lemontree summary judgment.

Lemontree argued that it was an out-of-possession landlord with no knowledge of the dog’s temperament, and the Court of Appeals agreed and reversed. As a landlord that did not own or keep Jax, Lemontree was outside § 51-2-7, and its right to approve the tenants’ pets did not give it partial possession of the house. Quoting an earlier decision, the court held that such a landlord’s “only liability to third persons is that of OCGA § 44-7-14.” The plaintiffs could not proceed on negligence per se under a city ordinance’s broad definition of an animal’s “owner,” because allowing that claim against an out-of-possession landlord would undo the limits the statute imposes.

20. GoldOller Management Services v. Smith (2022)

GoldOller Management Services, LLC v. Smith, No. A22A1567, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 28, 2022

Kristian Smith emailed his apartment complex about two encounters on the lake trail in which an unidentified older woman’s dog barked and tried to charge at him while she held it back, and the property manager asked him to photograph the woman and her dog the next time he saw them. On January 7, 2020, the woman lost hold of the leash, the dog ran toward Smith, and he lost his footing and fell; the dog stopped about three feet from him.

Smith’s own knowledge of the dog was equal to or greater than the managers’, the Court of Appeals held, and that barred his premises liability claim; it reversed the denial of summary judgment without deciding whether the dog had a vicious propensity. Smith had seen the woman and her dog many times but had given the managers only a vague description, and she was not a tenant and had not registered the dog. At most the managers knew that “an older unidentified woman was walking an unidentified large dog on the complex property” and that the dog had twice barked and pulled at its leash toward Smith from a distance, which “falls far short” of showing their superior knowledge.

21. Wade v. American National Insurance Co. (2000)

Wade v. American National Insurance Co., 246 Ga. App. 458, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 23, 2000

Thirteen-year-old Matthew Wade, who worked part-time at a softball complex, was in the office with his father and an assistant league director when Champ, a dog the complex used to guard equipment, lay down a few feet from him and then jumped up and bit him on the face as he began to stand. The Wades argued that guard dogs have a known propensity to attack that creates a jury question by itself.

Summary judgment for the complex’s operators was affirmed. They had no knowledge that Champ had ever tried to attack a person or an animal; barking and growling at strangers at the fence was menacing behavior only, and Matthew and his father also knew Champ was a guard dog, so the operators’ knowledge was not superior to theirs. Creating a special “subclass” of animals designated as inherently dangerous “must be addressed to the legislature, not this court,” the Court of Appeals held, and in any event the evidence “rebutted any presumption that the defendants had superior knowledge of Champ’s propensity to bite.”

22. Hackett v. Dayton Hudson Corp. (1989)

Hackett v. Dayton Hudson Corp., 191 Ga. App. 442, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 4, 1989

Hackett, who hauled scrap cardboard, was bitten while climbing onto his truck bed behind a Brandens store. The dog belonged to the store’s general manager, Jackson, who had brought it to work because of construction at his home and chained it outside the building.

The store’s operator was not liable, because the uncontroverted evidence was that the manager’s conduct was not within the scope of his employment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Dayton Hudson. There was also no evidence of the company’s superior knowledge for a premises liability claim: Jackson’s superiors did not know the dog was there, employees were not allowed to bring dogs to work, and the dog had caused no earlier problems. The court also affirmed the denial of Hackett’s own motion for summary judgment against Jackson: even if the dog was vicious, fact questions remained about careless management, because according to Jackson’s affidavit the dog was chained in an area reached only by stepping over a 28-inch guardrail, and about whether Hackett used reasonable care for his own safety. The Cobb County leash ordinance Hackett relied on was not in the record, and the court could not take judicial notice of it.

Promises, Keepers and Former Owners

Liability can also turn on a promise to restrain a dog, on who was keeping it at the time, or on a former owner’s duty to the next owner. The injured person reached a jury in the first decision below and lost in the other two.

23. Osowski v. Smith (2003)

Osowski v. Smith, 262 Ga. App. 538, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 15, 2003

Tony Osowski came to the Smiths’ home to install cable and, seeing dogs roaming around, asked whether they would bite. He testified that Joseph Smith assured him “there shouldn’t be any problems with them at all, except for one of them he couldn’t be positive of,” and offered to fence them up if that would make him feel better; Smith testified that he offered to put up only one dog. As Osowski walked back to his truck, a dog he believed was the Smiths’ boxer struck him from behind and he fell; the Smiths disputed that their dog hit him. The parties stipulated that there was no leash law and that the Smiths had no superior knowledge of the boxer’s temperament, and the trial court granted the Smiths summary judgment.

The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground of a voluntary undertaking. Because the testimony conflicted, a jury had to decide “whether Smith explicitly or implicitly agreed to undertake ensuring that the dogs would not pose a risk of harm to Osowski,” and if so whether he breached that duty and whether the breach caused the injury.

24. Cormier v. Willis (2012)

Cormier v. Willis, 313 Ga. App. 699, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 26, 2012

Annie Cormier, a home health care worker who had cared for Joseph Willis’s mother-in-law for several years, was sitting in her car in his driveway when a pit bull chained on the porch slipped out of its collar, jumped through the open passenger window and bit her elbow. The dog belonged to Willis’s 27-year-old daughter, Carmaleita, who was visiting with it while he was out of state on vacation.

Joseph Willis neither owned nor kept the dog, the Court of Appeals held in affirming summary judgment for him. The dog was under its owner’s supervision when it bit Cormier and he was not even home, and because Carmaleita owned the dog, she was not acting as her father’s agent in keeping it. A local ordinance Cormier relied on could not be considered, because no original or certified copy of it was in the record.

25. Coogle v. Jahangard (2005)

Coogle v. Jahangard, 271 Ga. App. 235, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 6, 2005

The Jahangards gave their golden retriever to James Green, who kept it on his houseboat at Lake Allatoona, and weeks or months later it bit 11-year-old Marshall Kunisch on the face. Green testified that after the bite Ms. Jahangard told him the dog had once bitten a cousin while playing, which she denied, and the boy’s mother sued the former owners for failing to warn Green.

No duty to warn existed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the Jahangards. No contract or law placed a duty on a person giving away a dog to warn the new owner of a prior biting incident, and the court rejected the analogy to placing a defective product in the stream of commerce. Causation also failed: Green had kept the dog and let Kunisch play with it even after it nipped another child at his home, and the dog’s environment had changed. A claim under § 51-2-7, raised for the first time on appeal, could not be considered.

The Injured Person’s Own Conduct

In the decisions below, assumption of the risk required that the injured person had actual knowledge of the danger, understood and appreciated the risks, and voluntarily faced them. The defense succeeded in three of the four. The last of them involves a rooster; the claims there included one under § 51-2-7, which covers “a vicious or dangerous animal of any kind.”

26. Raith v. Blanchard (2005)

Raith v. Blanchard, 271 Ga. App. 723, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 21, 2005

Tracey Raith was bitten on the lip at a party at the Blanchards’ home while on her knees trying to pet their Lhasa Apso, Satchel, which several people said growled at her first; Jennifer Blanchard testified that earlier that evening Raith had told her the dog growled when she tried to kiss him. A neighbor testified that the dog had earlier gone after her face and “nicked” her hand, although she never told the Blanchards about it, and that Jennifer Blanchard had told her the dogs were kept out of the house when company came because Satchel “could bite somebody”; Raith’s mother testified that Jennifer said she “should have warned [Raith] to stay away from the dog.” The Blanchards disputed this account.

Both grounds for summary judgment failed on appeal. The evidence raised a jury question about the Blanchards’ superior knowledge of the dog’s temperament, the Court of Appeals held, and because a growl does not put an owner on notice of a propensity to bite, it “can hardly be viewed as plain and palpable evidence that a third party actually knew about and appreciated the danger that the dog might bite.”

27. Durham v. Mason (2002)

Durham v. Mason, 256 Ga. App. 467, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 24, 2002

Twelve-year-old Michael Durham followed the Masons’ son into their locked house, which the son entered through a rear window while his parents were away, and began petting the family’s dog, Taz, which was leashed to a pantry door in the kitchen; the dog jumped up and bit his ear. By Michael’s own testimony, Taz had growled at him before, he was afraid of the dog and thought it unpredictable, and he knew it had bitten another boy.

Summary judgment for the Masons was affirmed on their lack of superior knowledge and on assumption of the risk. Michael voluntarily approached a dog “securely leashed in a locked house,” and those facts were “plain, palpable, and undisputed evidence” that he assumed the risk. The defense may apply to children between seven and fourteen “if the evidence shows that the child appreciated the danger yet chose to confront it anyway.”

28. Saulsbury v. Wilson (2019)

Saulsbury v. Wilson, No. A18A1901, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 8, 2019

Lilita Wilson’s pit bull, Alpha, got out of a crate in her open garage and fought with Maribel Saulsbury’s English bulldog, Baby, as Saulsbury walked by. Wilson intervened with her bare hands, slipped and lost control of Alpha, and went back in, although she knew Baby had bitten a neighbor before; she was bitten, allegedly by Baby, and her arm was broken. On Wilson’s counterclaim for her injuries, the trial court denied the Saulsburys summary judgment.

Reversing, the Court of Appeals held that Wilson “assumed the risk of harm as a matter of law by intervening in a dog fight.” The county ordinances that required her to restrain her own dog “cannot be reasonably interpreted to obligate dog owners to jeopardize life and limb if a dog fight happens.”

29. Gilreath v. Smith (2017)

Gilreath v. Smith, 340 Ga. App. 265, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 17, 2017

Josephine Gilreath, a professional pet sitter, was spurred and pecked by the Smiths’ rooster, Sam, when she opened the coop door to feed the chickens, and developed serious infections. On an earlier job Jodi Smith had messaged her, “Just throw food into cages. Rooster will attack!”, and Gilreath admitted the message conveyed a danger of attack; the coop also bore a sign reading “CAUTION AREA PATROLLED By Attack Rooster Security Co.”

The warnings were enough, and the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the Smiths on assumption of the risk. The court saw no difference between a warning that the rooster “will attack” and a warning that it had already attacked others, found no evidence that the Smiths knew of a greater danger than Gilreath did, and distinguished a decision on an employer’s duty not to expose a worker to unreasonable risk, because Gilreath was asked not simply to work near the rooster but to care for the chickens, including the rooster. Her claim under a Roswell ordinance failed because she did not introduce a certified copy of it.

A Verdict Reviewed on Appeal

The last decision reviews a multimillion-dollar verdict, both on the evidence of the owners’ knowledge and on how the judgment was entered.

30. Steusloff v. Finelli (2025)

Steusloff v. Finelli, No. A25A1366, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 3, 2025 (with Hinton v. Finelli, No. A25A1367)

Stacy Finelli was bringing misdelivered mail to her neighbors when Jean Steusloff invited her inside, and a pit bull mix owned by the Steusloffs’ son, which had lived at the home for almost two years, bit her arm, knocked her off the front stoop and repeatedly bit her arms, throat and leg. She spent ten days in the hospital and three months in a wheelchair and underwent surgeries including skin grafts and partial removal of her Achilles tendon. Suing under the premises liability statute, OCGA § 51-3-1, the Finellis won a verdict of $5,620,159.99, which the jury apportioned 25 percent to Jean Steusloff and 75 percent to Thomas Steusloff, who had died before trial and whose estate was a party.

The liability verdict stood. Two earlier incidents in which the dog jumped on people in Jean Steusloff’s presence, in one of which it bit an elderly neighbor, were “the same type of behavior” and sufficient to support the verdict, the Court of Appeals held. But the trial court erred in entering the judgment jointly and severally rather than according to the jury’s apportionment, so the court vacated the judgment and the award of attorney fees under the offer of settlement statute and remanded for a new judgment and reconsideration of fees. The court also held that the jury could find Stacy Finelli an invitee, because bringing the misdelivered mail served both households, and it rejected the estate’s argument that the judgment against it was void.

How These Decisions Were Selected and Checked

Each summary was written from the text of the opinion itself rather than from secondary descriptions. Citations use the Georgia Reports or Georgia Appeals Reports where the reporter citation was available; more recent Court of Appeals decisions are cited by docket number and decision date. Where a decision on this page disapproved a statement in another decision listed here, the summary says so; a full review of each decision’s later history was not performed. The summaries cover the issues discussed here and not every issue in each appeal. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Legislative Summaries Consulted

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 157th General Assembly (2024), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 1st Session of the 158th General Assembly (2025), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 158th General Assembly (2026), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

About This Page

This page summarizes published appellate decisions for general information. It is not legal advice and does not describe how the law applies to any particular claim. Court decisions can be limited, distinguished or overruled, and statutes change; the outcome of a case depends on its facts and on the version of the law that applies to it.