The Minnesota dog bite statute is as follows:
Minn. Statutes Annotated, Section 347.22: Damages, owner liable.
If a dog, without provocation, attacks or injures any person who is acting peaceably in any place where the person may lawfully be, the owner of the dog is liable in damages to the person so attacked or injured to the full amount of the injury sustained. The term "owner" includes any person harboring or keeping a dog but the owner shall be primarily liable. The term "dog" includes both male and female of the canine species.
Minnesota courts have applied the statute in a manner most favorable to dog bite victims. It has been interpreted as an absolute, strict liability statute. Comparative fault is not permitted as a defense. Seim v. Garavalia (Minn. 1981), 306 N.W.2d 806, 810; Lewellin v. Huber, 465 N.W.2d 62 (MI 1991). As the court stated in Lewellin:
[L]iability is absolute. It makes no difference that the dog owner may have used reasonable care; negligence is beside the point. Past good behavior of the dog is irrelevant. Neither the common law affirmative defenses nor statutory comparative fault are available to the defendant dog owner. (The owner does, however, have the defenses of provocation and failure of the injured person to conduct himself peacefully while in a lawful place.) Whoever keeps or harbors the dog is subject to the statutory liability for the "full amount of the injury," and the dog's owner remains at all times primarily liable.
http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/legal_ri.htm#One-Bite states
