This is the most under-recognised dog injury in Florida, and it is the one where being told “no bite, no claim” costs people the most.
What happens. A dog charges, jumps up, cuts across a path on a long lead, or simply bowls someone over. In an older adult that frequently means a fractured hip, wrist, shoulder or pelvis — and a hip fracture in particular is a life-altering event, not a bruise.
Florida has a statute for exactly this. Section 767.04, the bite statute, does not apply because no bite occurred. But § 767.01 says a dog owner “is liable for any damage done by the owner’s dog to a person.”
Any damage. Not any bite. The full explanation.
Most states leave this to ordinary negligence, where you must prove the owner was careless. Florida wrote a statute. If someone told you there is no claim without a bite, that describes a lot of places — it does not describe Florida.
Why these claims are undervalued when they are brought at all:
- Nobody connects it to the dog. A fall is recorded as a fall. Say clearly to the first clinician that a dog caused it, and make sure that is what goes in the record.
- Recovery is slower and less complete than for a younger person, and loss of independence — moving to assisted living, needing help at home — is a real and compensable consequence that gets left out.
- Care costs are ongoing, not a single bill. What actually drives value.
- Fear of falling changes behaviour, and that is part of the injury. Document it.
Practical notes. Photograph the location, note where the dog came from, and get details from anyone who helped — including whether the dog was leashed and whether a local leash ordinance applied. Report it to county animal services even with no bite, so there is a dated independent record.
And act promptly. The two-year deadline applies, and these claims are frequently brought late precisely because nobody thought of a fall as a dog case.