Colorado Dog Bite Settlement Calculator
Estimate a dog bite settlement under Colorado law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Colorado law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a dog bite claim: how long you have to file, what the state's dog bite statute makes an owner liable for, what happens if you were partly at fault, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Colorado bars recovery if plaintiff is 50% or more at fault.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-111·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-102.5(3)(a)(II); HB 24-1472·Last reviewed 2026-07-29
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-102·Last reviewed 2026-07-30
A person who suffers serious bodily injury or death from a dog bite while lawfully on public or private property, or that person's personal representative, may sue the dog owner for economic damages, whatever the dog's viciousness or dangerous propensities or the owner's knowledge of them. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-124(2) reads: “(2) A person or a personal representative of a person who suffers serious bodily injury or death from being bitten by a dog while lawfully on public or private property shall be entitled to bring a civil action to recover economic damages against the dog owner regardless of the viciousness or dangerous propensities of the dog or the dog owner's knowledge or lack of knowledge of the dog's viciousness or dangerous propensities.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Colorado law on dog bites, and how courts have applied it is not stated here. Read from the Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, the latest compilation this session could open; a change made in 2025 or later would not show in it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-124(2)·Last reviewed 2026-10-17
What partial fault costs you in Colorado
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Colorado law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Colorado deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Colorado periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102.5·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorWhich deadline governs a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Colorado is not established here. The two years published is Colorado's general wrongful-death period under C.R.S. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d) and 13-80-108(2). C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), which gives a Colorado car-accident claim three years, covers "All tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle" and does not mention a death. We have not established whether it reaches a wrongful-death action, because neither of the two sources behind the three-year period addresses one. Treat the two years as the shorter of two readings rather than as the answer, and speak to a licensed Colorado attorney well inside it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d), 13-80-108(2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 8-43-103(2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorColorado's filing deadline for a motor-vehicle injury claim is three years, under C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), not the two-year general personal-injury period in C.R.S. § 13-80-102(1)(a). The three-year provision covers "All tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle", and in City and County of Denver v. Gonzales the Colorado Supreme Court applied it in place of the general two-year period. The same paragraph makes an exception: it does "not apply to any action for strict liability, absolute liability, or failure to instruct or warn governed by the provisions of section 13-80-102 (1)(b) or section 13-80-106". A claim of that kind runs on a different period, which this page does not state because we have not read those two provisions. If any part of your claim is of that kind, speak to a licensed Colorado attorney before relying on three years.
Riding a bicycle? This provision can reach a cyclist's claim in Colorado only where a car or other motor vehicle was involved in the crash, and a crash that involved no motor vehicle runs on Colorado's general personal-injury period instead. The bicycle accident calculator shows the period a cyclist's claim in Colorado is given, and why.
C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I)·Last reviewed 2026-09-23
Open the motor vehicle claims calculatorColorado against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 10 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar, and Colorado is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 23 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 6 years.
- We have read the official text of 29 jurisdictions' dog bite statutes. 9 make the owner liable for a bite as such, 12 for injury or damage the dog causes more broadly, and the other 8 turn on something more specific: a presumption about what the owner knew, a dog found dangerous, a dog off its owner's premises or running at large, a bite causing serious bodily injury or death, or medical costs. Colorado's is one of the other 8.
- 7 of the 51 jurisdictions limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in our data, and Colorado is one of them at $1,500,000, so a large non-economic award can be reduced to it.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Colorado calculators
Colorado Dog Bite questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.