Florida Dog Bite Law FirmFlorida has its own service animal statute, § 413.08, sitting alongside the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. It was rewritten in 2020 and it is more specific than most people expect.
What counts as a service animal
A service animal is “an animal trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability” — and for the access provisions the statute narrows that further:
Two things follow immediately.
Training is the defining feature. The animal must be trained to do work or perform tasks. Comfort from the animal’s presence alone is not task work.
An emotional support animal is not a service animal. The statute says so directly:
That is the most consequential sentence in this area of Florida law, and it is the one most often missed. ESAs are governed by a different statute covering housing, not public access.
Where a service animal may go
The limit is built into the wording: areas the public is normally permitted to occupy. It is not a right of access to a commercial kitchen or a staff-only area.
When a business may remove one
Access is not unconditional, and the grounds are specific:
Three separate grounds: out of control and not brought under control, not housebroken, or a direct threat. Note that the first requires both that the animal is out of control and that the handler is not effectively addressing it.
Handlers are liable for damage
This is where the service animal statute meets the rest of Florida dog law.
And more broadly: a service animal that bites someone is still a dog whose owner is subject to § 767.04. Access rights are not immunity from liability. A person bitten by a service animal has the same strict liability claim they would have against any other owner.
If that is your situation, the analysis is the same as any other bite, with the added evidential point that the animal’s training and history become relevant in a way they usually are not.
Misrepresenting a service animal is a crime
A second-degree misdemeanour plus 30 hours of community service. Florida is unusual in attaching a specific community service requirement, and unusual in prosecuting this at all.
Note carefully what it covers: misrepresenting oneself as using a service animal, in the public accommodation context. It is not the provision that governs ESA documentation in housing, which has no equivalent penalty. Those two get conflated constantly.
History: s. 2, ch. 2020-76.
This firm handles injury claims. We do not handle service animal access complaints or disability discrimination matters. If you have been denied access, a disability rights organisation or an attorney practising in that area is the right call — not us.