90 Day Satisfaction Guarantee
Dog attacks can cause injuries with lasting physical and emotional effects, especially when a child suffers facial wounds or permanent scarring. We document those losses through medical opinions, photographs showing how injuries change over time, and evidence of how the attack affected daily life.
Wagners holds a Lexpert Top 10 ranking, and our Halifax office holds 4.9 stars across 506 Google reviews. You owe us nothing unless the claim succeeds, and we fund the reports a bite file needs while it runs.
Our dog bite lawyer in Halifax reads the file personally rather than passing it to an assistant.
Bite files also turn on evidence that disappears fast. The animal control record, the photographs taken in the first week, and the neighbour who saw the dog before it reached you are all easier to secure now than in six months.
Send us the photographs and the animal control report, or call (902) 425-7330, and we will tell you honestly what they are worth. That review costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Two routes exist, and neither one works the way American law does.
The first is scienter, an old rule holding owners answerable for the animals they keep. The second is ordinary negligence, meaning the owner failed to take reasonable care with a dog in a public place or around a child.
Scienter once forced injured people to prove the owner already knew the dog was dangerous, which is where the idea of one free bite came from. Nova Scotia legislation removed that knowledge requirement.
Section 179 of the Municipal Government Act, S.N.S. 1998, c. 18 sets the rule.
On the trial of an action against the owner or harbourer of a dog for injury caused by that dog, it is not necessary to prove knowledge by, or notice to, the owner of any mischievous propensity of the dog.
Halifax operates under its own Charter, which carries the same proof-at-trial provision for bites inside the municipality. The practical effect is identical either way: you do not need the dog's bite history to bring the claim.
One caution, because this is easy to overstate. The legislation removes the knowledge requirement, not the whole of the old rule, so it is not the automatic liability an American strict-liability statute creates. Breed is a separate question again, and municipalities set their own rules on dangerous dogs.
More people than the person whose name is on the licence.
Section 3 of the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter, S.N.S. 2008, c. 39, defines the owner of a dog as any person who possesses it, has the care of it, has the control of it, or harbours it.
Harbouring means keeping or sheltering the animal, and where the owner is a minor, the definition reaches the person responsible for their custody.
In practice, that wording opens several possible defendants:
Naming the right party matters because the one with insurance is not always the one holding the leash.
A bite at a private residence during a delivery raises the workers' compensation question first. Where you do not have access to Workers' Compensation Board benefits, or have opted out, a personal injury claim may be open to you instead.
Your ability to recover in such cases typically depends on whether the person who had care and control of the dog carries tenant or homeowner insurance. That coverage is the source from which the claim is paid.
Couriers, posties, and meter readers make up a steady share of the bite files we open. Whether WCB covers you changes the whole shape of the claim, so raise it in the first conversation rather than after a form is signed.
Almost always, an insurance company, not the dog's owner, personally. Most homeowner and tenant policies carry third-party liability coverage that responds when a resident's dog injures someone. That coverage is where a settlement comes from.
People hesitate because the owner is a neighbour, a relative, or a friend. That hesitation is understandable and usually misplaced, because pursuing the policy rather than the person is standard, and the owner is not writing a personal check.
Where no policy exists, we look at whether a landlord, a business, or a kennel had control of the animal. Ask us to check the coverage before you decide the claim is not worth making.
Property brings a second duty into the picture.
Under section 4 of the Occupiers' Liability Act, S.N.S. 1996, c. 27, whoever controls the premises must act reasonably to keep visitors safe, and how a resident dog is contained falls squarely inside that duty.
An unsecured gate, a broken latch, or a dog left loose in a shared hallway can breach that duty on its own. Bites we take on regularly happen at:
Where a bite happens shapes who answers for it, so tell us the exact spot rather than just the street.
A bite claim is valued on what the injury costs you, not on a description of the injury itself. Scarring, nerve damage, and loss of grip are all claim categories we act on, and each is measured the same way: what you can no longer do, for how long, and what living with it takes.
The psychological side is part of the claim and is the part most often left out. Canadian courts treat psychological injury as compensable on the same footing as physical injury, and a claimant does not need a formal psychiatric diagnosis to establish it. Evidence is still required, so tell your doctor about the avoidance and the broken sleep, not only about the wound.
Mostly, you cannot do the work while healing. We obtain the animal control file, identify every party with care or control of the dog, trace the insurance, and deal with the adjuster so nobody is asking you for a recorded statement while you are still recovering.
Our lawyers also handle the parts people tend to miss:
None of that costs you anything while the file is open, because we pay the disbursements ourselves.
Provocation is the standard answer from an insurer, and it rarely ends a claim.
Under section 3 of the Contributory Negligence Act, R.S.N.S. 1989, c. 95, a court apportions fault among the people involved, and it divides liability evenly only when the evidence does not support any other split.
In contrast to a complete defence, a provocation argument usually shifts a percentage rather than closing the door. Reaching over a fence or startling a sleeping dog might reduce a claim without ending it.
Children are treated differently again, since the law measures a child against what a child of similar age could reasonably foresee. Being told the bite was your own fault is not a reason to stop asking.
Call once the wound has been treated and reported, wherever in the province you live. Bites in Dartmouth, Bedford, and Sackville fall under the Halifax rules, while a bite in Truro, Antigonish, or the Annapolis Valley falls under the provincial statute instead.
The wording travels with you, and the proof-at-trial rule reads the same in both, so an injured person outside the city is in the same position on knowledge of the dog.
Our lawyers travel to clients across the province and into New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Distance has never been a reason we turned a file away.
Evidence in bite files is unusually perishable, and most of it sits with someone else. What moves a claim forward:
Bring us whatever you already have, even if it is only a phone photo and a first name. Your dog bite lawyer in Halifax will chase down the rest.
Not your hospital treatment, which is covered here, so a claim is built around what the bite took from your life instead. Depending on the file, that can include:
Putting figures to those items takes reports we commission and fund, and we order them early so the file is ready when the insurer moves.
The Supreme Court of Canada set an upper limit on damages for pain and suffering decades ago, adjusted since for inflation, so figures quoted online often do not apply here. That limit covers scarring, too, while lost income, future care, and out-of-pocket costs sit outside it.
Immediately. The animal control file gets harder to obtain as months pass, witnesses move house, and the dog itself may be rehomed or change hands.
Under section 8 of the Limitation of Actions Act, S.N.S. 2014, c. 35, most claims run two years from the day the claim is discovered.
Section 18 stops that clock entirely while the injured person is under 19, which is why a childhood bite is rarely as late as a family fears. Starting early also means treatment gets documented as it happens rather than reconstructed from memory.
Our dog bite lawyer in Halifax can open a file without committing you to a lawsuit. Plenty are resolved with a letter and a policy number.
Bite claims raise questions that other injury files never do, mostly because the owner is someone you know.
Make the report even if the owner offers to pay directly. Future treatment may cost more than expected, and an official record provides an independent account. Reporting also documents the dog's history if another incident occurs.
No. Waiting may give a clearer picture of how a child's scar develops and whether further treatment will be needed. In Nova Scotia, settlements for minors also require court approval, adding judicial review before the claim is finalized.
Yes, and more often than you would think. The claim is answered by the household's insurance policy, which exists for exactly this situation. We can approach it in a way that keeps the relationship intact.
The claim survives the animal. Liability attaches to the person who owned or harboured the dog at the time, so an order made afterward by a municipality does not remove your right to compensation.
Not necessarily. People are injured by dogs without teeth ever touching them, through falls caused by a lunging animal, or through a chase that ends in a fracture. Psychological injury from an attack on a family member can also form the basis of a claim.
Yes, and choosing to walk in a designated off-leash area does not mean you accept the risk of being attacked. An owner's duty to keep the animal under control travels into the park with them, and municipal rules still apply once they are inside it.
Raise it with your doctor first, since the dog's vaccination status can affect the care you are offered. The municipality may also require the animal to be confined and monitored. We can obtain licensing and vaccination records later, when they are relevant to the claim.
Most people who call us start by apologizing for taking up our time over a dog. There is no need, and there never has been.
Tell us where it happened, who had the animal, and what your treatment has looked like so far, and we will give you a straight answer about whether a claim is worth bringing. Reach Wagners at (902) 425-7330 or 1-800-465-8794, and our dog bite lawyer in Halifax will take it from there.
"*" indicates required fields