STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Legal experts say New York’s dog bite laws are some of the most “antiquated” of their kind, despite the consistency and severity of recent dog attacks on Staten Island.

D’Agostino and Associates, located in Eltingville, commonly deals with the victims of dog attacks, and attorneys there are familiar with the burden of proof required to compensate them in civil cases.

“In New York, there is no actual statute governing what happens if the owner of a dog allows it to attack somebody and someone gets horrifically injured,” said Glen Devora, the firm’s managing attorney.

“We’re still going off of the common law,” which dictates that those injured by a dog bite must satisfy two essential burdens to place responsibility on a negligent dog owner, Devora explained.

First, as Jonathan D’Agostino, president and founder of the firm, explains, a “vicious propensity” must be established.

Ultimately, a dog must be shown to have a dangerous tendency to be violent.

While there is no exact criteria for “vicious propensity,” D’Agostino said that “it’s not enough to show a dog barks."

"It’s not enough to show someone has a ‘beware of dog’ sign in front of their house,” he said.

The ambiguity in this section of the law creates a dangerous precedent, as a lack of cooperation of the owners of a potentially dangerous dog could halt or stunt an investigation.

The lack of clarity surrounding the first aspect of the burden of proof also makes the second criteria even more difficult to establish: Knowledge of the “vicious propensity."

This requires victims to prove that the owner of a dog committing an attack had prior knowledge of the dog’s vicious tendencies.

This can be especially difficult if the owners adopted a dog from a shelter and were unaware of its past.

“It’s a hard burden,” D’Agostino said.

DIFFERENT STATES, DIFFERENT STORY

As plaintiff attorneys, D’Agostino said he and his partners have to work diligently to gather evidence to satisfy these burdens, which can sometimes include canvassing the neighborhood of an attack, talking to neighbors and even “interviewing the mailman.”

Even with proof, D’Agostino said, “everybody gets a free bite,” which, he says, is an ongoing joke in dog-bite lawsuits -- a dog and its owner are given a free pass if it’s the animal’s first offense.

This “one-bite rule," as it is commonly called, shields possibly negligent dog owners from civil responsibility resulting from the first injury inflicted by their dogs.

In comparison, states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania have adopted much more “updated” laws, Devora said.

In New Jersey, “if your dog attacks somebody, you’re responsible,” Devora said, “which is what, logically, you would think would be the case.”

In New Jersey there is no requirement to prove a dog owner had knowledge of a prior incident or previous vicious propensity.

“You don’t have to prove any of that,” Devora said.

Pennsylvania, in a contrast to New York, features a statute that addresses dog-bite attacks in a two-pronged approach, D’Agostino said.

First, “they look at the severity of the injury, and if you don’t have a significant injury, they will look to see if there’s vicious propensity," D’Agostino said.

However, he said: “If the dog has done significant damage, you are liable, that’s it."

These newer approaches to dog-bite attacks bypass the common law and cause the burden of responsibility to fall heavier on the owner of a potentially-vicious animal.

WHAT ABOUT CRIMINAL CHARGES?

In recent months, the Advance has chronicled several dog attacks on the borough, including two instances in which the same dogs are believed to have attacked more than once.

Charges were not filed in any of those instances. And neither dogs were removed from their owners.

On Sept. 7 on Little Clove Road in Sunnyside, a pit bull broke loose of its senior citizen owner and attacked a young woman who was walking her two Chihuahua puppies on the street.

Just weeks later, an identical dog was caught on video attacking a man and his pet around the corner on Renwick Avenue and Oswego Street.

In an unrelated case, two large dogs broke free from their home and attacked a woman and her two small dogs last year in her backyard on Holly Avenue in Great Kills. Those same dogs are believed to have attacked a 75-year-old woman and her poodle around the corner on Oceanview Place.

After each of those attacks, the victims notified the NYPD, but cops ultimately referred the cases to the Health Department, the agency usually responsible for investigating attacks.

The department’s investigation into the Great Kills incidents is still ongoing.

Meanwhile, the owner of the Sunnyside pit bull entered into a stipulation with the Health Department that included mandating the dog be neutered (if not already), vaccinated for rabies, licensed (if not already), receive obedience training, and be leashed and muzzled in public.

According to the Agriculture & Markets Law, if a dog owner negligently permits his dog to bite a person, the dog previously was declared to be dangerous, and the injury is a “serious injury,” the dog owner can be convicted of a misdemeanor. The law defines a “serious injury” as one that causes death or presents the risk of death, or causes “serious or protracted” disfigurement, “protracted impairment of health or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ.”

COMPENSATION

The most significant hurdle for victims of dog-bite attacks in New York remains the burden of proof required to satisfy a vicious propensity and knowledge of the aforementioned propensity.

Still, the payouts could be unsatisfactory for dog owners whose dogs were injured or killed in an attack. For dog-on-dog attacks, the maximum a dog owner can be compensated is the cost of their dog.

“Any emotional connection you might have to the dog is worthless,” Devora said.

Even in a case where a dog is fatally attacked by another dog, D’Agostino and Devora say that they are still left with the burden to supply not only evidence of a viscous propensity, but that the owners of the dog were aware of it prior.

And while a negligent dog owner can be fined for having their dog off of a leash, proving that an attacking dog was left off a leash is not enough to guarantee compensation.

“The onus is on the person who got attacked,” Devora said.

In comparison to dog-on-dog attacks, when a human is injured in an attack the payouts could “have very big values,” Devora said.

Devora said injuries like permanent scarring, gruesome lacerations and even broken bones from dog bite attacks have come into D’Agostino’s law office, and the most severe of the injuries could be compensated in the “seven-figure” range.

But, “you have to do the investigating,” Devora explained, because, “at the end of the day, if you can’t do what you have to do with the proof end of it, you don’t get any compensation.”

NO CHANGE IN SIGHT

Despite what Devora calls “antiquated” laws, there appears to be no change in sight for New York dog-bite victims.

“At one point,” Devora said, “I believe the plaintiff’s bar had at one time tried to change the laws, or at least have the legislature look at it," but no significant change was made.

Devora said he hasn’t heard of any recent push to modernize New York’s dog bite laws.

“We’re talking about decades of the same rule in place,” he said.

D’Agostino echoed Devora’s sentiment. For both law experts, the cause is as puzzling as the use of the antiquated laws.

“I don’t know who would lobby against (updating the outdated laws)," Devora said, “because responsible dog owners shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”