You were on a walk. Maybe a driver rolled through a stop sign in a Scottsdale neighborhood, or turned right on red across a crosswalk on Thomas Road without ever looking left. Now you're hurt, your dog may be hurt, and an adjuster is already calling.
If you were hit by a car while walking a dog in Arizona, you have one claim for your own injuries and a separate, smaller property damage claim for your dog. The injury claim runs against the at-fault driver's bodily injury liability coverage, which Arizona requires at minimum limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident under ARS 28-4009. It covers your ER bills, follow-up treatment, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Your dog is treated as personal property under Arizona law, so reasonable veterinary bills are recoverable, but Arizona courts do not award emotional distress damages for a pet's injury or death; see Kaufman v. Langhofer, 222 Ariz. 249 (App. 2009). You generally have two years from the crash date to file suit under ARS 12-542. If the driver fled or carried no insurance, your own uninsured motorist coverage can step in. Report the crash, photograph the scene, and get evaluated before you talk to any adjuster.
What the driver owed you on that sidewalk or crosswalk
Arizona puts most of the burden on the person behind the wheel. ARS 28-792 requires a driver to yield the right of way to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. ARS 28-794 goes further: every driver has to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian, sound the horn when necessary, and use proper caution around children or anyone who appears confused or incapacitated.
Those two statutes do a lot of work in dog-walking cases, because most of these crashes happen at low speed in residential areas or in parking lots. A driver backing out of a driveway in Arcadia has a duty to look. A driver turning into a Safeway lot has a duty to clear the crosswalk before accelerating.
Your own duties matter too. ARS 28-793 says a pedestrian crossing outside a crosswalk yields to vehicles, and ARS 28-796 requires you to use the sidewalk where one exists and, where none exists, walk on the left facing traffic. Falling short of those rules doesn't end your claim. It just gives the insurer an argument.
The leash argument insurers make
Expect it. The adjuster will ask whether your dog was leashed, whether the dog pulled you into the street, and whether the dog is what the driver swerved to avoid. Under ARS 11-1012, dogs must be on a leash or otherwise restrained when off the owner's property in Arizona's counties, and Phoenix, Tempe, and Scottsdale all have city ordinances saying the same thing. If your dog was off leash, the insurer will use it.
Here's why that isn't fatal to your case. Arizona follows pure comparative fault under ARS 12-2505. Your recovery gets reduced by your percentage of fault, but it never gets wiped out. A jury that finds you 30 percent responsible for a retractable leash letting your dog into the bike lane still awards you 70 percent of your damages. Arizona is one of a small number of states where even a plaintiff found 80 percent at fault recovers something.
What we do in these cases is narrow the fault fight with facts: the driver's speed from event data, the ring camera two houses down, the point of impact on the bumper, whether the driver was on a phone. Our Pedestrian Accidents team pulls that evidence early, before a homeowner overwrites the footage.
Your injuries in a dog-walking crash are often worse than they look
Two injury patterns show up constantly. The first is the leash injury; the leash is wrapped around your wrist or fingers when the car hits, and you end up with a finger fracture, a degloving injury, or a torn rotator cuff from the yank. Those get dismissed as minor at triage and then need a hand surgeon three weeks later.
The second is the secondary impact. Pedestrians hit at even 20 miles per hour frequently get hurt worse hitting the pavement than hitting the car. Concussions, orbital fractures, and tibia and fibula fractures are routine. If you were knocked unconscious for any period, say so in writing to the ER, because a gap in documentation is the first thing a defense lawyer points to.
Damages in your injury claim include past and future medical bills, lost income, diminished earning capacity, scarring, and pain and suffering. Arizona doesn't cap non-economic damages; Article 2, Section 31 of the Arizona Constitution forbids it.
Recovering your dog's veterinary bills
An emergency visit to BluePearl or a VEG clinic after a car strike can run several thousand dollars in imaging, surgery, and overnight care. Those bills are recoverable as property damage against the driver's liability policy, usually under the property damage limit rather than bodily injury.
Keep every invoice and discharge summary. Insurers sometimes try to value a dog at adoption-fee replacement cost instead of paying the treatment bill, and a documented course of care is what defeats that. Grief over an injured or killed pet, however real, isn't compensable in Arizona, so we focus that part of the claim on hard numbers.
Deadlines and coverage traps that end otherwise good claims
Two years is the general rule under ARS 12-542. But if the vehicle belonged to a city, a school district, a transit agency, or the state, ARS 12-821.01 requires a written notice of claim within 180 days of the crash and suit within one year. Miss the 180 days and the claim is gone regardless of how badly you were hurt.
Hit-and-run cases have their own path. Fleeing the scene of an injury crash violates ARS 28-661, and while police work the criminal side, your recovery may come from uninsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy under ARS 20-259.01. You don't need to have been in a car; UM follows you as a pedestrian. Notify your carrier quickly, because most policies impose prompt-notice and cooperation conditions.
MedPay coverage, if you carry it, pays medical bills without regard to fault and doesn't have to wait for the liability settlement. Health insurers and hospitals will assert liens under ARS 33-931, and those get negotiated at the end.
Before you give a statement
Don't record one. The adjuster's questions about where you stepped off the curb and how long the leash was aren't idle curiosity; they're building a comparative fault file. Get the police report number, see a doctor, and talk to personal injury lawyers who handle these cases before the insurer locks in your version of events. Many of these claims also involve commercial policies or multiple vehicles, which is where our car accident attorneys layer coverage to reach the full value of the loss.
Sher Law Group handles pedestrian claims throughout Phoenix, Scottsdale, and the rest of Maricopa County. If you were hit by a car while walking a dog in Arizona, call 480-418-7437 for a free consultation. No fee unless we win.