Dog Bite Cases in Buffalo, New York After Flanders: What Injured Victims Need to Know

If you or a loved one has been bitten or injured by a dog in Buffalo, New York, the law is more favorable to injured people than it used to be.

For years, New York dog-injury law was dominated by a rule which courts read as barring ordinary negligence claims when a domestic animal – commonly thoughts of as a pet – caused injury. That meant many cases rose or fell on one question: could the injured person prove that the owner knew or should have known of the animal’s “vicious propensities?”

But in 2025, the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in our State, changed that landscape. The court held that a person injured by a domestic animal now has a choice: proceed under strict liability, ordinary negligence, or both. That’s a significant development for dog bite and dog knockdown cases in Buffalo and throughout New York.  That case is called Flanders v. Goodfellow.

What Flanders changed

In Flanders, a postal carrier was bitten by a dog while delivering a package. The Court of Appeals concluded there was a triable issue of fact on strict liability because of evidence that the dog had previously barked, snarled, slammed into windows, and appeared to try to attack postal workers through the glass. The court then went further and expressly overruled prior law to the extent that the law barred negligence claims for injuries caused by domestic animals.

The court stated that New York now follows a two-pronged approach. A plaintiff may seek:

• Strict liability, by showing the owner knew or should have known of the animal’s vicious propensities;
• Ordinary negligence, by proving the defendant failed to exercise due care under the circumstances, and that failure caused the injury; or
• Both theories in the same case.

That means a Buffalo dog injury case is no longer confined to the old all-or-nothing “vicious propensities only” framework.

Strict liability still matters

Flanders didn’t eliminate strict liability. That claim remains fully available. Under long-settled New York law, an owner of a domestic animal who knew or should have known of the animal’s vicious propensities may be held strictly liable for harm caused as a result of those propensities.

The court also reaffirmed that the term “vicious propensity” is broader than just a prior bite. It can include behavior such as growling, snapping, baring teeth, or other behaviors that reflect a tendency to behave in ways that could hurt other people. In Flanders, evidence that the dog barked, snarled, bit at the window, and slammed into the glass at postal workers was enough to create a fact issue on constructive knowledge.

So, if a Buffalo dog owner knew their dog had been acting aggressively toward delivery workers, neighbors, guests, or other animals, strict liability may still be a strong claim.

Negligence is now back on the table

The biggest practical shift is that ordinary negligence is now a viable claim against the owner of a domestic animal. The Court of Appeals explained that ordinary negligence asks whether the defendant failed to exercise due care under the circumstances and thereby caused the injury.

That matters because negligence and strict liability aren’t identical theories.

A negligence claim usually focuses on questions such as:

• Did the owner fail to restrain or control the dog reasonably?
• Did the owner open the door carelessly with the dog loose inside?
• Did the owner fail to warn a visitor, delivery person, or worker about a known risk?
• Did the owner manage the interaction in an unsafe way under the circumstances?

Those kinds of arguments were often blocked before Flanders when the case involved a domestic animal. Now they can be pleaded and litigated.

Why this matters in Buffalo dog cases

For injured people in Buffalo, Flanders matters because many dog cases are not as simple as “the dog bit before” or “the dog never bit before.” Sometimes the owner may not have a clean history of prior bites, but the owner may still have behaved carelessly in handling the animal.

A typical example would be a homeowner opening the front door while knowing the dog is barking and rushing the entrance. That kind of conduct may support negligence even if the strict-liability proof is disputed. Flanders makes room for that argument.

That doesn’t mean every dog injury case is automatically strong. It means plaintiffs are no longer boxed into just one theory.

Evidence is still everything

Even after Flanders, dog cases remain evidence-driven. The facts that often matter most include:

• prior aggressive behavior,
• prior complaints,
• statements by the owner,
• how the dog was confined or restrained,
• whether warnings were given,
• what happened immediately before the attack,
• and whether the owner’s conduct was reasonable under the circumstances.

In Flanders, sworn statements from prior postal workers were critical. They described repeated aggressive conduct by the dog and explained why people inside the house likely would have known about it. That was enough to create a triable issue of fact on constructive knowledge.

So in a Buffalo dog case, early investigation still matters. Witnesses, photos, texts, social media posts, veterinary records where obtainable, animal-control reports, and owner admissions can all be important.

What should an injured person do after a dog bite or attack?

The practical steps remain the same, but they matter even more now that both negligence and strict liability may be in play.

1. Get medical treatment immediately. Dog bites can cause puncture wounds, infection, muscle damage, nerve injury, scarring, and lasting functional problems. In Flanders, the plaintiff suffered a shoulder injury requiring multiple surgeries and permanent scarring.
2. Document the injuries with photographs right away and over time.
3. Identify the dog owner and any witnesses.
4. Write down exactly what happened, including anything the owner said.
5. Report the incident to the appropriate authority when warranted.
6. And don’t assume that the absence of a prior bite ends the case. After Flanders, that’s no longer the whole story.

The most important takeaway is this:

In New York, after Flanders v. Goodfellow, a person injured by a dog or other domestic animal isn’t limited to strict liability alone. The plaintiff may pursue:

1. Strict liability based on the owner’s actual or constructive knowledge of vicious propensities,
2. Ordinary negligence based on lack of due care under the circumstances,
3. Or both.

That’s a major change, and it makes early case evaluation in Buffalo dog injury matters more nuanced than before.

If you were bitten or injured by a dog in Buffalo or elsewhere in Western New York, speaking with an experienced Buffalo personal injury attorney early can help you determine whether there’a proof of prior dangerous behavior, whether the owner had notice, and how best to protect your claim.

Call us anytime for a free consultation, 716.839.9700.