Spartanburg's mix of close-knit neighborhoods, walking trails like the Mary Black Rail Trail, and busy corridors such as East Main Street and Reidville Road means dog encounters happen daily. Most stay pleasant, but South Carolina sees thousands of reported dog bites yearly, and Spartanburg County isn't immune.
South Carolina law strongly favors dog bite victims, holding a dog's owner strictly liable for injuries the dog causes, without requiring the victim to prove the owner did anything wrong.
If you were bitten or attacked in Spartanburg, you generally have three years to file a claim, and the owner can be liable even if the dog had never shown aggression before. The Arndt Law Firm represents dog bite victims across Spartanburg and Spartanburg County. Call us at (843) 310-4645 to learn your legal options.
Here, we’ll explain how South Carolina's strict liability law works, the defenses an owner may raise, and how to protect a claim.
South Carolina is a strict liability state for dog bites, which sets it apart from states that give an owner a pass for a dog's first bite. Under S.C. Code § 47-3-110, when a person is bitten or otherwise attacked by a dog while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, the dog's owner, or the person who had the dog in their care or keeping, is liable for the damages the victim suffers. The victim does not have to prove negligence.
This is a powerful protection because it removes the hardest part of many personal injury claims. The victim does not need to show that the owner knew the dog was dangerous, that the dog had bitten before, or that the owner failed to restrain it properly.
The simple facts that the dog bit or attacked the person, and that the person was lawfully present and did not provoke the dog, establish the owner's liability. A dog with no history of aggression, owned by a responsible person, can still trigger liability the first time it bites.
This removal of the knowledge requirement is what makes the South Carolina rule favorable to victims, because in many states, the question of what the owner knew about the dog is exactly where a claim succeeds or fails. A victim in a one-bite state must prove that the owner was aware of the dog's dangerous tendencies, which can be difficult or impossible when the dog had never bitten anyone before, and an owner who can plausibly say the attack was unforeseeable may escape liability entirely.
South Carolina takes that question off the table: the owner's knowledge, or lack thereof, simply does not affect liability under the strict liability standard. The victim who was lawfully present and did not provoke the dog, has a claim regardless of whether the owner had any reason to expect the attack, which spares the victim the burden of proving something that is often hidden in the owner's own mind.
The law also reaches beyond bites. S.C. Code § 47-3-110 applies when a person is bitten "or otherwise attacked," which covers injuries a dog causes without biting, such as a dog that runs out and knocks a person down, causing them to fall and be hurt. This broader reach means the strict liability protection extends to the range of ways a dog can injure someone, not only to puncture wounds from a bite.
Breed does not change the analysis. South Carolina law states affirmatively that an animal is not a dangerous animal "solely by virtue of its breed or species" (§ 47-3-710(C)), and neither the City of Spartanburg nor Spartanburg County has a breed-specific ordinance; both codes define dangerous and vicious animals by what the animal has done.
The statute imposes liability on the dog's owner and on any person who had the dog in their care or keeping at the time, which means responsibility can extend beyond the legal owner.
A person watching the dog, such as a dog sitter, a friend, or anyone who had charge of the animal when it attacked, can be liable under the same strict standard. This matters when the legal owner is not the person who was handling the dog at the time of the attack.
Every potentially responsible party has to be identified because the available insurance depends on who is liable. Most dog bite claims are paid through the responsible person's homeowner's or renter's insurance, and these policies typically cover liability for dog-related injuries, sometimes including incidents away from the home.
The breadth of the "owner or keeper" language can matter a great deal to a victim's recovery, because it expands the set of people who may be liable and the insurance that may be available. If a friend or family member was watching the dog when it attacked, that person may be liable as a keeper even though they do not own the dog, and their own homeowner's or renter's insurance may respond in addition to or instead of the owner's.
A landlord is usually not liable for an attack by a tenant’s dog on the leased premises, and simply owning the property is not enough to make someone a keeper under the statute. South Carolina requires conduct that manifests an acceptance of responsibility for the dog.
There is a narrow exception. In Clea v. Odom, 394 S.C. 175 (2011), the Supreme Court allowed a claim against a landlord where the dog was kept in a common area under the landlord’s control, the landlord knew the dog had already attacked a child, and the landlord did nothing about it. Whether a landlord is in the case turns on control of the area where the attack happened and what the landlord knew.
Because a serious dog attack can generate costs that exceed a single policy, identifying everyone who had the dog in their care or keeping, and the coverage behind each, can be the difference between a recovery limited to one policy and one that reaches the full resources available.
South Carolina's strict liability law is favorable to victims, but it contains specific exceptions that an owner will raise.
The statute sets a two-part test that the owner must meet: the victim provoked or harassed the dog, AND that provocation was the proximate cause of the attack. South Carolina’s appellate courts have not defined what counts as provocation, so the question is litigated on the facts, which is why witness accounts of exactly what happened before the attack carry so much weight.
The statute contains exactly two exceptions. The first is provocation. The second, in S.C. Code § 47-3-110(B)(2), covers a dog working in a law enforcement capacity, and it applies only if all six statutory conditions are met: the attack complied with the lawful command of a certified canine officer, the dog was trained and certified to South Carolina Law Enforcement Training Council standards, the agency had a written policy on the use of dogs, neither the handler nor the dog violated it, the force used was not excessive, and the person bitten was not a third-party bystander.
If any one of those fails, the exception does not protect the agency, but the claim then proceeds under the Tort Claims Act, with its own shorter deadline and damages caps.
The strict liability protection applies when the victim was in a public place or lawfully in a private place, which means an owner is generally not strictly liable to a person who was trespassing on private property when the attack occurred.
Lawful presence is defined broadly. It covers anyone on the property at the express or implied invitation of the owner, a lawful tenant, or a resident, and anyone performing a duty imposed by state law, a local ordinance, or federal law; the statute specifically names postal regulations. Utility and delivery workers are generally covered on one route or the other.
It is also worth being precise about what provocation means under the statute, because owners often invoke it loosely. The exception requires that the victim's conduct provoked or harassed the dog and that this provocation was the proximate cause of the attack, which generally means intentional conduct directed at the animal rather than ordinary behavior in its vicinity.
Walking past a dog, approaching in a normal way, or even a child's innocent interaction, is not the kind of provocation the statute contemplates, and an owner cannot defeat a claim simply by asserting that the victim was near the dog or did something the dog reacted to.
South Carolina does not apply an age-based presumption, Standard v. Shine, 278 S.C. 337 (1982), abolished the old brackets and measures a child against what a child of like age, intelligence, and experience would do.
What matters under the dog bite statute is narrower: the owner must show the child actually provoked or harassed the dog and that the provocation was the proximate cause of the attack, which is a demanding standard when the child was doing what children ordinarily do around dogs.
South Carolina’s dog bite statute does not contain a comparative fault provision. The only fault-based defense written into § 47-3-110 is provocation, and it operates as a complete bar rather than a percentage reduction.
If the victim provoked or harassed the dog and that provocation was the proximate cause of the attack, the statute does not apply at all.
South Carolina’s general 51 percent comparative negligence rule comes from Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., a negligence case, and no South Carolina appellate court has held that it reduces a recovery under the strict liability dog bite statute. Insurers nonetheless argue that the victim’s conduct is at issue, which is why the evidence of what actually happened still matters.
Dog attacks cause injuries that range from puncture wounds to catastrophic and disfiguring harm. Bites can cause deep lacerations, puncture wounds, crushing injuries, nerve and tissue damage, and infection, and attacks to the face and head, common in attacks on children, can cause permanent scarring and disfigurement. The physical injuries are often accompanied by significant emotional trauma, particularly for children, who may develop lasting fear and anxiety after an attack.
Children and older adults are especially vulnerable to severe injuries. A dog attack on a small child can cause devastating facial and head injuries because of the child's size, and these cases frequently require surgery and may involve long-term reconstructive and psychological treatment.
The reason children suffer such severe injuries is worth delving into: a child's smaller stature places their face and head at the level a dog can reach, so bites that might strike an adult's arm or leg instead strike a child's face, scalp, or neck, where the consequences are graver and the scarring more visible and permanent.
A serious attack in Spartanburg County is likely to be treated at Spartanburg Medical Center, one of five adult Level I trauma centers in South Carolina. Children with severe facial or head injuries are typically transferred to a designated pediatric trauma center; in Upstate, that is Prisma Health Greenville Memorial, the region’s Pediatric Level II center, with MUSC in Charleston, the state’s only Pediatric Level I center.
Infection is a distinctive medical risk in dog bite cases that adds to their seriousness. A bite drives bacteria deep into the tissue, and wounds that appear minor on the surface can develop serious infections, which is why medical evaluation matters even for bites that do not look severe.
Beyond infection, a bite raises the question of rabies risk, making the dog's vaccination status an immediate concern, and some victims require a series of preventive treatments when that status cannot be confirmed.
In the most severe cases, dog attacks can be fatal, raising the wrongful death considerations that an experienced Spartanburg wrongful death lawyer can address.
The lasting consequences of a serious attack go well beyond the initial wounds, and South Carolina law recognizes the scarring, disfigurement, and psychological harms, including the lasting fear and post-traumatic stress that children especially may suffer as real and compensable elements of a claim.
Most dog bite claims in South Carolina are resolved through insurance rather than out of an individual owner's pocket. Homeowner's and renters' insurance policies typically include liability coverage that responds to a dog-related injury, and this coverage is usually the source from which a dog bite claim is paid.
This means that pursuing a claim is generally not about taking money directly from a neighbor, friend, or acquaintance, but about reaching the insurance that exists for exactly this kind of harm.
There are limits and wrinkles worth understanding. Some policies exclude certain dog breeds or cap the amount they will pay for a dog-related claim, and may have exclusions that affect whether and how much they respond.
When the responsible person was not at their own home, such as a dog sitter watching a dog elsewhere, the question of which policy applies can become more complex, and more than one policy may potentially be involved. Identifying the right policy and confirming the coverage it provides is part of building a dog bite claim, particularly when the injuries are serious enough that the available coverage will affect the recovery.
There is one more place coverage can come from. If the dog had already been designated a dangerous animal under S.C. Code § 47-3-710, its owner was required to register it and to carry at least $50,000 in liability insurance or a surety bond for injuries the animal inflicts (§ 47-3-760(E)).
That requirement is in addition to, not instead of, any homeowner’s or renter’s coverage. The statute expressly preserves every other civil remedy. Whether the dog had a prior attack on record is therefore worth checking early.
For a serious attack, especially one involving a child with lasting scarring or a victim with significant injuries, the available coverage can be the practical ceiling on the recovery, which makes identifying every applicable policy important.
The steps taken after a dog attack protect both health and any resulting claim. The first priority is medical care because dog bites carry a serious risk of infection and may involve damage beneath the surface that is not immediately apparent.
Prompt treatment both protects health and documents the injury at its source. Even a bite that looks minor should be evaluated, because puncture wounds can introduce bacteria deep into the tissue.
Get the name and contact information of the owner or the person who had the dog, and if possible, information about the dog's vaccination history, which bears on the risk of rabies and other concerns. Photograph the injuries and the location while the scene is fresh.
Report the bite. South Carolina law requires it: under S.C. Code § 47-5-90, the treating physician must report the bite to the county health department by the end of the next working day, and if no physician attends, that duty falls on the bitten adult or on the parent of a bitten child. Reporting also triggers the ten-day quarantine of the dog under S.C. Code § 47-5-100, which is how the dog’s identity and rabies status are determined.
In the City of Spartanburg, animal complaints go to the Police Department’s Animal Services Division at 864-582-1558; elsewhere in the county, to Spartanburg County Animal Control dispatch at 864-562-4083.
In the days that follow, preserve the evidence and be careful with insurers. Keep a record of the medical treatment and its costs, photograph the injuries as they heal to document scarring, and collect the names of any witnesses who saw the attack and can confirm that you were lawfully present and did not provoke the dog.
Avoid giving a recorded statement to the owner's insurer before understanding your rights. Because the owner's likely defenses turn on provocation and lawful presence, witness accounts and records that establish what actually happened are especially valuable and easiest to gather soon after the attack.
| Element | South Carolina dog bite rule |
| Standard | Strict liability; no need to prove owner negligence (§ 47-3-110) |
| Prior history | Irrelevant; owner liable even for a dog's first bite |
| Covered injuries | Bites and other attacks, including knockdowns |
| Key exceptions | Provocation that caused the attack; trespassing |
| Lawful presence | Includes invited guests and workers like mail carriers |
No. South Carolina applies strict liability under S.C. Code § 47-3-110, so the owner is liable if you were lawfully present and did not provoke the dog, regardless of the dog's history.
The owner can still be liable. South Carolina does not give a dog a free first bite, so a lack of prior history does not defeat the claim.
An owner is generally not strictly liable if the victim provoked the dog or was unlawfully on private property.
Dog bite claims are usually paid through the owner's or keeper's homeowner's or renter's insurance, though some policies exclude certain breeds or cap coverage.
The general deadline is three years from the date of the attack under S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5). If the dog belonged to or was kept by a government agency, a police K-9, a county animal shelter dog, the deadline is shorter: two years under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, § 15-78-110, unless a verified claim is filed with the agency within one year, which extends the period to three years.
Different rules apply when the victim is a child. Under S.C. Code § 15-3-40, the limitations clock is tolled while the injured person is under eighteen, and the statute’s general five-year cap on tolling does not apply to infancy. Exactly how the deadline is computed for a minor is not settled, so a child’s claim should never be assumed to be expired; have the dates reviewed.
A Spartanburg dog bite suit is filed in the Court of Common Pleas for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, at the Spartanburg County Courthouse, 180 Magnolia Street, Spartanburg, SC 29306.
The Arndt Law Firm builds every Spartanburg dog bite case on South Carolina's strict liability law, establishing the victim's lawful presence and lack of provocation to overcome the owner's defenses, identifying every responsible owner or keeper and the insurance that stands behind them, and documenting the full physical and emotional impact of the attack.
Attorney Jonathan Arndt previously defended insurers. This gives our firm insights into how these claims are evaluated and contested, helping us build cases to reflect the true harm.
If you or your child was bitten or attacked by a dog in Spartanburg or anywhere in Spartanburg County, reach out to us immediately so we can secure the evidence and witness accounts that counter the provocation and trespassing defenses an owner is likely to raise. Your consultation is free, and dog bite cases are handled on a contingency basis with no fee unless we recover for you.
Last reviewed: June 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
