Pet-food contamination cases could lead to legal changes

If you think of dogs and cats as members of the family, you might figure you could collect damages for pain and suffering if they were to die because of wrongdoing.

The law in California and many other states sees things differently. Pets are treated as personal property, like cars and computers.

But that could be changing, as contaminated pet food is believed to be responsible for the deaths of dozens of dogs and cats nationwide.

"You'll see a lot of pressure on legislators to remove liability barriers, to not see these animals as property but as entities like humans," said Jon Katz, the author of several books on the changing relationship between dogs and people.

Some barriers already have been removed. Appellate court decisions in at least six states, including Washington, permit "special damages" in some instances, said Alan Calnan, who teaches product-liability law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Beverly Hills lawyer Kenneth Phillips says several pet-owning clients have collected for pain and suffering; in one case, he negotiated a settlement for a woman with muscular dystrophy who was distraught after her dog was attacked by another and died.

And in a 2004 malpractice case in Orange County, a jury awarded owners of a rescue dog $30,000 for its emotional value, on top of $9,000 in vet bills.

What's more, the state of Rhode Island and several cities have legally defined pet owners as "guardians," in effect equating animals with children — which is just how many people regard their pets.

For all that, Katz warns that granting pets humanlike legal status could create "troublesome" consequences for veterinarians, pet-food and -toy companies, shelter operators and perhaps even pet owners themselves. Higher damage awards for malpractice could lead to unnecessary testing and higher vet fees. And clothing animals with humanlike status might eventually limit an owner's ability to decide to euthanize a suffering pet.

Historically, no matter how beloved the animal, state laws have allowed owners compensation solely for its replacement cost in the event of injury, death or theft. Those laws were rooted in the notion that some animals — like herding dogs, workhorses and cattle — had quantifiable economic value based on the work they did for farmers and ranchers.

In the pet-food cases, "there's no question in the law" that pet owners will be entitled to damages to cover their vet bills, the cost of food they purchased and "funeral expenses," said Chicago attorney Jay Edelson, who last week filed a potential class-action lawsuit on behalf of a Chicago woman who had her cat euthanized after its kidneys failed. Los Angeles lawyer Michael Morrison anticipates the suit he filed Tuesday could include 1,000 or more pet owners.

The notion that pet owners are entitled to damages for emotional distress reflects what author Katz calls a seismic shift that took place in recent decades in humans' relationship to household pets.

Half of North American pet owners responding to a 2004 survey said that if they were stranded on a desert island, they would pick a dog or cat rather than a person to be their sole companion. Almost half said their pets were better listeners than spouses, family members or friends, the American Animal Hospital Association poll showed.

As far as Katz is concerned, those human-pet bonds can be too intense. He's troubled by people who consider their pets to be "fur children" or insist that losing a pet is like losing a child.

"As the father of a child, and a dog lover, I know it's not the same thing," he said.

For Barry Baum, a West Los Angeles veterinarian, the worry is that the legal changes regarding animals' status could translate into higher malpractice-insurance premiums. "More insidious," he added, "will be the need to practice more defensively" — doing more tests on a pet and hiking up the owner's vet bill.

Giving animals humanlike legal status might eventually result in higher liability awards if, for instance, a dog chokes on a chew toy, an airline misroutes a cat or an animal dies in a car accident, said Southwestern Law School's Calnan. He also worries that "parties who want to represent the rights of pets could step in and object to euthanasia."

Said Katz: "I don't think people have thought through the consequences here."