Maryland Dog Bite Settlement Calculator
Estimate a dog bite settlement under Maryland 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 Maryland 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.
Maryland applies contributory negligence. Any plaintiff fault bars recovery.
Coleman v. Soccer Ass'n of Columbia, 432 Md. 679, 69 A.3d 1149 (2013)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 11-108(b)(2)·Last reviewed 2026-07-31
When a dog causes a personal injury or death, the law presumes the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous, and the owner may rebut that. The owner is also liable for injury a dog causes while running at large, with the exceptions the section lists. Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-1901(a)(1), (c) reads: “In an action against an owner of a dog for damages for personal injury or death caused by the dog, evidence that the dog caused the personal injury or death creates a rebuttable presumption that the owner knew or should have known that the dog had vicious or dangerous propensities.” and “The owner of a dog is liable for any injury, death, or loss to person or property that is caused by the dog, while the dog is running at large, unless the injury, death, or loss was caused to the body or property of a person who was: (1) Committing or attempting to commit a trespass or other criminal offense on the property of the owner; (2) Committing or attempting to commit a criminal offense against any person; or (3) Teasing, tormenting, abusing, or provoking the dog.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Maryland law on dog bites, and how courts have applied it is not stated here.
Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-1901(a)(1), (c)·Last reviewed 2026-10-16
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
What partial fault costs you in Maryland
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 Maryland 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 Maryland deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Maryland 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.
Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-101·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorMd. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. 5-109 requires filing by the earlier of 5 years from when the injury was committed or 3 years from discovery. We publish the 3-year discovery period. A claim goes to the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office first, with an expert certificate.
Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. 5-109·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the medical malpractice calculatorMd. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-904(g)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorMd. Code, Lab. & Empl. § 9-709·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorMd. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-101·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorMd. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-101·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorMaryland 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.
- 6 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply the contributory negligence rule, and Maryland is one of them.
- Its 3 years to file is longer than the 2 years that 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 27 jurisdictions' dog bite statutes. 9 make the owner liable for a bite as such, 11 for injury or damage the dog causes more broadly, and the other 7 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, or medical costs. Maryland's is one of the other 7.
- 7 of the 51 jurisdictions limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in our data, and Maryland is one of them at $980,000, 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
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Maryland 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.