Massachusetts Dog Bite Settlement Calculator
Estimate a dog bite settlement under Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts 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.
Massachusetts bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
The owner or keeper is liable for damage a dog does to a person, unless the person was trespassing, committing another tort, or teasing, tormenting or abusing the dog; for a child under seven, the law presumes they were not. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 155 reads: “If any dog shall do any damage to either the body or property of any person, the owner or keeper, or if the owner or keeper be a minor, the parent or guardian of such minor, shall be liable for such damage, unless such damage shall have been occasioned to the body or property of a person who, at the time such damage was sustained, was committing a trespass or other tort, or was teasing, tormenting or abusing such dog. If a minor, on whose behalf an action under this section is brought, is under seven years of age at the time the damage was done, it shall be presumed that such minor was not committing a trespass or other tort, or teasing, tormenting or abusing such dog, and the burden of proof thereof shall be upon the defendant in such action.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Massachusetts law on dog bites, and how courts have applied it is not stated here.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 155·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 Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Massachusetts 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.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 4·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 152, § 41·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorMassachusetts 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.
- 24 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and Massachusetts 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. Massachusetts's is one of the 11 about injury or damage more broadly.
- 7 of the 51 jurisdictions limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in our data and Massachusetts is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
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
Massachusetts calculators
Massachusetts 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.