Animal Instincts: Lovers of Fido and Fluffy Are Pushing For Recognition They Are More Than Pet Objects
By JASON W. ARMSTRONG (Daily Journal Staff Writer)

SANTA ANA -- Robert Newman doesn’t consider himself an animal-rights activist. But it was a near-eviction from an Orange County apartment complex over his cat, Shredder, that led the Santa Ana attorney to his current legal passion: an attempt to alter the way in which state law views pets.

“I moved into an apartment, and the landlord said, ‘We’re happy to have you here, but you’ll have to get your cat declawed,’” said Newman, one of a very few lawyers in the county who devote a significant portion of their practices to animal law.

“I said, ‘I’ll have him declawed if you cut your fingers off.’ Then they threatened to evict me.”

Newman, who had just passed the State Bar and was not yet practicing law, contacted the Petaluma-based Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) -- a group of more than 750 lawyers across the nation dedicated to protecting and promoting animal rights. With help from the organization’s lawyers, he wrote a letter to the apartment’s property management company, offering legal arguments about why he and his cat were wrongfully treated.

Newman and his cat were allowed to stay, and Newman joined the ALDF as a way of saying thanks for the help. Then organization officials asked if they could list Newman as the attorney of reference in Orange County for issues of animal law. He accepted the duty, and the called started pouring in.

Veterinary malpractice. Inhumane shelters and boarding facilities. Neglected pets. During the past four years, these types of cases and many more have landed in the lap of the attorney, who owns, in addition to Shredder, another cat named T.J. and a Chihuahua named Ruben -- all animals he rescued from certain death in shelters.

But Newman’s chief frustration in dealing with animal cases has been the view of California courts that pets are objects with no worth other than the animal’s market value at time of purchase. So pet owner who sue in cases where animals die as a result of cruelty or neglect usually can’t expect a big payback, said Newman, whose practice ranges from criminal defense to animal cases.

“The court has the arcane view that animals are objects, that people shouldn’t be entitled to recover emotional distress damages for the loss of their pet.”

It is in pursuit of such damages for plaintiffs that Newman -- who prefers to be called an “animal advocate” rather than an “animal-rights activist” -- is crusading to put a new face on animal laws.

Newman, with the help of Santa Ana attorney Tina Locklear, is in the process of drafting a proposal for legislation that would change the classification of animals from objects to beings with intrinsic value. Newman and Locklear hope to have the bill drafted and submitted to a lawmaker by early next year. They do not have a sponsor yet for the legislation.

Increased publicity given to the plight of animals could improve the chances for the success of such a bill, Newman said. In a first-time move for a California city, San Francisco is currently changing its health laws to describe humans as “guardians” of their pets, as well as their “owners.”

In Newman’s view, the San Francisco change is “pretty toothless.”

“While I don’t think it is profound, I do think the language itself is important. Hopefully, it will get people thinking differently about their relationships with animals.”

A pair of laws that have recently passed may also help to combat the stigma, Newman said. One he called the “Hayden bill,” which passed in July, dictates that animal shelters statewide have to work closely with breed rescue groups to insure that animals are adopted. And one he called the “Vincent bill,” which passed in September and becomes law Jan. 1, says that all pets adopted from animal shelters must be spayed or neutered before leaving the shelter.

While these laws don’t directly affect the value pets hold within the court system, they are a step in the right direction, said Locklear, a Santa Ana attorney who serves as in-house counsel for First American Title Co. but spend much of her free time advocating animal rights.

“It’s definitely a positive sign,” Locklear said. “I think this scenario is comparable to the way things were historically for women and slaves and children. They were able to get their rights by classification out of the property category, and that’s what needs to happen for animals.”

And it’s cases like the recent wrestling grizzly bear incident in Inglewood that serve to open more eyes to the plight of animals, Newman said. He was asked by animal rights groups to intercede on behalf of Dakota, a Kodiak grizzly bear that was forced into a wrestling ring at the Hollywood Park Casino last month.

Newman said Los Angeles prosecutors told him they are still looking into the matter. Officials with the district attorney’s office could not be reached for comment.

Since early this century, the law has held firm the view that animals are objects, and courts have awarded only minimal damages, Newman said. But the growing desire to sue for emotional distress as a result of injury or death to a pet has become such a hot topic because of the growing number of people who view animals as members of their family.

“Studies show that 65 percent of Americans look at their pets as full members of their households,” he said. “I had one client who sold an expensive home in San Juan Capistrano and moved out because the homeowner’s association said they had one too many dogs. The housing market was bad, and they would rather sell their house for less than it was worth than part with one of their animals.”

Through damages in animal cases are limited in California courts, manu lawyers believe emotional suffering damages are available based on the state Supreme Court case of Molien v. Kaiser, 27 Cal3d 916 (1980). In that case, the court ruled that a man could recover damages because of emotional suffering he experienced when his wife was misdiagnosed with an illness.

“You have to just keep chipping away at it until you find a judge who will look at the issue a different way,” Newman said.

The problem with the law is underscored, Newman said, in cases of veterinary malpractice. If the actions of a veterinarian result in an animal’s death, “you are very limited to how much money you can recover,” he said.

Gary Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA, voiced skepticism at the proposed change in the law.

“Take a case of loss of consortium, for example,” Schwartz said. “In such cases, a person can receive [damages] in the event of the loss of a spouse, but a father can’t recover for the loss of a child, and a child can’t recover for the loss of a parent. Would it be accurate to say that a dog is more important than a person? Where do you draw the line?”

Roy Spiegel and Kim Norris tried to get emotional distress damages after suing an animal boarding facility in Long Beach last year after their pet parrot, Murphy, died from being kept in a large room with a wide array of other animals, including dogs and cats. A necropsy revealed that the bright green parrot died of stress because it couldn’t cope with being cooped up with other creatures, said Newman, who represented the plaintiffs.

Long Beach residents Spiegel and Norris felt that they should be awarded a significant amount of damages for pain and suffering because they had purchased the parrot as a hatchling, raided it for 10 years, and developed an emotional bond with the animal. The court disagreed, however, and awarded $3,800 -- what the bird was worth when it was purchased a decade ago.

Courts in different states vary on the amount of damages they will allow in animal cases. Like California, Louisiana also blocks emotional damages in such cases.

But in Iowa, for instance, the court looks first to the manner in which an animal is killed, awarding exemplary damages in situations where the animal is killed maliciously.

In Kentucky, courts have awarded damages for the intrinsic value of a pet. In the case of Stephanski v. Wimpy, DEC266.40, a jury awarded $15,000 in damages for intrinsic value in a case in which the plaintiff’s dog was surgically sterilized by a veterinarian, and later died as a result of the surgery.

Newman is optimistic that his efforts to change the law may produce similar results in California.

“While legal perspectives on many aspects of our society have continued to evolve, the perspective toward animals hasn’t. The only way to effect a real change is a complete transformation of the law as it applied to animals.

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