Haw. Rev. Stat. § 142-74

This is the official text of Haw. Rev. Stat. § 142-74, part of Hawaii’s Rev. Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Hawaii, published by the state as "Rev. Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Liability of dog owner; penalty.

Official statutory text

(a) If any dog, while on private property without the consent of the owner of that property, injures or destroys any sheep, cattle, goat, hog, fowl, or other property belonging to any person other than the owner of the dog, the owner of the dog shall be liable in damages to the person injured for the value of the property so injured or destroyed. The owner of the dog shall confine or destroy the dog, and if the owner of the dog neglects or refuses to do so, the owner of the dog, in the event of any further damage being done to the person or property of any person by the dog, in addition to paying the person injured for the damage, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and pay the costs of the trial, and it shall be lawful for any other person to destroy the dog.

(b) Each county may enact and enforce ordinances regulating persons who own, harbor, or keep any dog that has injured, maimed, or destroyed an animal belonging to another person. No ordinance enacted under this subsection shall be held invalid on the ground that it covers any subject or matter embraced within any statute or rule of the State; provided that the ordinance shall not affect the civil liability of a person owning, harboring, or keeping the dog. Upon enactment of an ordinance, whether enacted on, before, or after June 30, 2001, the ordinance shall have full force and effect; provided that the ordinance is consistent with this section. [PC 1869, c 23, §9; RL 1925, §667; RL 1935, §252; RL 1945, §1094; RL 1955, §20-73; HRS §142-74; gen ch 1985; am L 1986, c 64, §1; am L 2001, c 222, §1; am L 2025, c 235, §23]

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.