Judge awards $45,480 in cat's death

Paula Roemer knows most people don't understand her passion for animals.

Some of her North Seattle neighbors aren't thrilled about the crows she attracts to her back yard with bird seed, she says. When she rescued a scraggly kitten abandoned on a pathway while she was vacationing in Israel 13 years ago, people reacted with disdain.

So when a neighbor's dog mauled and killed that same beloved cat, Yofi, last year, Roemer barely mentioned it to people she knew. But now she feels that she found one person who understood: a judge.

Last week, Seattle District Court Judge Barbara Linde ordered the dog's owner to pay $45,480.12 to Roemer for the cat's death.

"Not too many [people] value a cat," said Roemer, a retired, 71-year-old former junior-high-school teacher, who lives alone except for her animals. "You know what I'm saying: 'It's just a cat.' And I'm very, very thankful we had a judge who knew that a cat had some value."

Judge Linde determined that Roemer should receive $30,000 in replacement value for the loss of her cat, $15,000 for emotional distress, $90 to recoup the cost of having Yofi cremated, $80 in medical expenses and $24.12 in interest.

Yofi was Paula Roemer's beloved cat.

The judgment may be among the largest amounts nationwide in lawsuits over the loss of pets, according to Roemer's attorney, Adam Karp of Bellingham, a specialist in cases involving animals.

"I do think it's the largest in our state for any type of animal, excluding, say, a Thoroughbred or other commercially valuable pets, or service animals," Karp said. "And I'm pretty sure it's the largest for a cat."

In 2003, a Snohomish County couple was awarded $25,000 in emotional damages when someone who was supposed to care for a horse and goats instead sold them for slaughter.

In a recent Texas case, the owner of a Mini-Schnauzer was awarded $10,000 in emotional distress when the dog escaped from a Petco grooming parlor and was hit by a car, according to Associated Press reports. In one New York case, the court found that a good dog's value increased with age, and its owner should be compensated accordingly upon the pet's untimely death.

The defendant in the cat case, Wallace Gray, pleaded guilty to an animal-control violation last October in Seattle Municipal Court. Court documents say he admitted that his dog killed a neighbor's cat in February 2004 "due in part to my negligence."

Gray said he just learned of the financial judgment yesterday from a reporter. "This is way out of hand. This is absolutely crazy," he said.

Gray said he had already served 21 days in jail and three months under house arrest for the animal-control violation. He wasn't living in the house with his dog at the time of the attack, he said, and the acquaintance who was taking care of his dog left town before the trial.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES Paula Roemer keeps two urns with ashes of beloved pets. Yofi's ashes, at left, are with a booklet Roemer created for court featuring pictures of the pet.

"I'm sorry she lost her cat, but I had no control over it," Gray said.

Gray added that he thought the punishment was excessive considering that dogs and cats are natural enemies.

"Cats eat birds and dogs eat cats," he said.

Gray did not appear in court for the case and was not represented by a lawyer, Karp said.

Judge Linde could not be reached for comment.

While Roemer predicts she won't collect a nickel from the judgment, she and her attorney take the ruling as a message that even cats count. She plans to give any money from the case to an animal-protection group.

Her lawyer says the public perception of cats puts them at a disadvantage.

"I think there tends to be a culture that says dogs are more of man's best friends and cats are aloof and can't bond," Karp said. "But if anyone has ever shared their bonds with a cat, they know that's utter nonsense. I think our society tends to devalue cats, and I think the judgment recognizes that cats, too, can mean the world to people."

Still, Roemer said, that can't erase the painful memory of what happened last year in her back yard, or the loss of a cat that slept in her bed, curled up against her stomach, nearly every day since she rescued it.

Roemer was in Israel visiting friends in 1992 when she came across a heap of matted fur covered with flies. Roemer stopped to offer the cat some water from a bottle cap.

"Here's this one cat that saw me as a savior and I couldn't walk away from her," she said.

She named the cat Yofi and finagled her way through customs and back into the United States, with the tiny white and black kitten in a pet carrier.

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Back in Seattle, Yofi became a fixture in Roemer's house, she said, befriending other cats and dogs she adopted.

Then, Roemer said, one day in February 2004 she heard screeching coming from her back yard and saw a neighbor's dog, a chow, holding Yofi in its jaws and shaking the cat. Roemer said she tried to rescue Yofi but lost sight of the cat while trying to save another one of her cats and get the dog out of the yard. She found the cat dead in another neighbor's yard the next day.

Roemer said Gray's dog had repeatedly escaped from its yard before the incident, partly because a fence on the side of the yard had large gaps.

Roemer said she sued Gray out of grief and frustration.

"I didn't go to court to get money," she said. "I could either burn his house down or I could go and shoot his dogs in front of him and shoot him, or I could shoot myself. So I decided to be rational and get a lawyer."

Now, the cremated ashes of Yofi rest in a small ceramic jar on a table in the living room of her small Northgate house. Behind it stands a large card with Yofi's name written across it and a montage of photos of Yofi inside.

The house is a testimony to her devotion to animals. A framed, hand-painted portrait of eight cats she has owned hangs in her bedroom. Boxes of cat-food cans rest on a spare bed in another room. A piece of cardboard sits in her living room near the television with detailed instructions on how to take care of the animals in case she can't.

Roemer still has the company of her other animals, a Husky mix named Ginger and three black-and-white cats, including the latest addition, Patsy Cline. She adopted that cat several months after Yofi died, when it cried one day as she looked at it.

She knows some people may find her odd for her love for animals. But she's past making apologies.

"It sounds crazy that I value my animals more than I do people. I help out people, too," she said. "It's just that in my personal life, I get along better with animals."

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.