AnimalVoicesNews Note: Thanks to Michael Gross, a Colorado animal-rights-activist attorney, for sending this. It's a discussion about an issue that's near and dear to my heart: the issue of the rights of animals and resultant damage awards/settlements for pain and suffering in cases involving malpractice, negligence, loss of companionship, etc. for the illness and/or loss of life of a companion animal. The second article is mostly a defensive piece for premium foods. Whatdya think on either issue?
Source/Letters: Los Angeles Times <letters @ latimes.com> (close spaces) Link: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pets30mar30,1,7960868.story?coll=la-he adlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true 4:22 PM PDT, April 2, 2007 Print E-mail story Most e-mailed Change text size A dog's life: What's it worth? Moves to raise the legal status of pets may lead to damage awards. But there are other issues. By Molly Selvin and Abigail Goldman, Times Staff Writers <molly.selvin @ latimes.com> (close spaces) <abigail.goldman @ latimes.com> (close spaces) March 30, 2007 Related Stories (See below) - Premium pet food: Is price worth it? <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-petside30mar30,1,1882155.story?coll=l a-headlines-business&ctrack=2&cset=true> If you think of Rover and Fluffy as members of the family, you may figure you could collect damages for pain and suffering if they were to die as a result of wrongdoing. The law in California and many other states sees things differently. It treats pets as personal property, just like cars and computers. But that could be changing. Lawsuits filed in the last week by owners of dogs and cats felled by contaminated pet food could press lawmakers and courts to upgrade pets' legal status. The food, produced by Menu Foods of Canada, 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 have already been removed. Appellate court decisions in at least six states permit damages for emotional distress in some instances, said Alan Calnan, who teaches product liability law at Southwestern Law School. Though California isn't among the six, Beverly Hills lawyer Kenneth Phillips says several pet-owner 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 unique emotional value, on top of $9,000 in vet bills. What's more, the state of Rhode Island and several cities, including West Hollywood, Berkeley and San Francisco, have legally defined pet owners as "guardians" in effect equating animals with children, which is how many people regard their pets. "Brutus was very special. He was my companion; he was my best bud; he was with me 24 hours a day," San Clemente resident Catherine Golden, 46, said of her cat, who died of kidney failure after eating the tainted food. "All of our cats have always been members of the family. I don't have any children, so I love my cats seriously." For all that, Katz warns that granting pets human-like 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 human-like 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 cases against Menu Foods, "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. Menu Foods has said it will pay vet bills for animals sickened by its products. Lawyers involved in the lawsuits filed in California, Washington state, Illinois, Tennessee and Wisconsin say they may seek pain and suffering damages for their clients too. "We've heard story after story of adult men and women breaking down on the phone because their child's pet has passed away," Edelson said. The notion that pet owners are entitled to damages for emotional distress reflects what Katz calls a seismic shift in humans' relationship to pets that has occurred in recent decades. 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, as their sole companion. Almost half said their pets were better listeners than spouses, family members or friends, the American Animal Hospital Assn. 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 "fur children" or insist that losing a pet is similar to losing a child. "As the father of a child and a dog lover, I know it's not the same thing," he said. Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn., a Greenwich, Conn.-based trade group, calls the pets-as-people trend "nonsense." Vetere, a dog owner himself, said, "That guardianship stuff drives me crazy because there's so much confusion that will result." 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." That may mean doing more tests on a pet and hiking the owner's bill. Giving animals a human-like legal identity might lead to 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 law instructor 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." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Source/Letters: Los Angeles Times <letters @ latimes.com> (close spaces) Link:<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-petside30mar30,1,1882155.story?c oll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=2&cset=true> 4:33 PM PDT, April 2, 2007 Premium pet food: Is price worth it? The high-end food makers say so, but nutrition experts don't necessarily agree. By Abigail Goldman, Times Staff Writer < molly.selvin @ latimes.com>(close spaces) March 30, 2007 Considering that all the nearly 100 brands in the pet food recall use the same factory, is there any reason to pay more for premium? Of course there is, premium pet food makers say. They say that they require the factory to use high-quality and thus more expensive ingredients, and that their recipes are developed after extensive testing and research. OK, but does that mean the higher price tag is worth it? Tony Buffington, a professor of veterinary nutrition at Ohio State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, isn't so sure. Your veterinarian probably knows best, he said, though there is another way to check, simply by observing how your pet looks and acts after eating. "I see absolutely no problem with having a choice," he said, "but I don't think the evidence is strong that there is a correlation between price and safety or price and nutrition." Menu Foods of Ontario, Canada, which initiated the recall March 16 after reports of kidney failure and deaths, has said it uses as many as 1,400 recipes to make the foods that come from its factories. Labels including Purina and Procter & Gamble's Iams and Eukanuba brands said their pet foods were made from high-quality stock that not all brands would choose. Purina, owned by Nestle, which makes 99% of its products in its own factories, specifies the quality or grade of ingredients that must be used to make its products, spokesman Keith Schopp said. Pet food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Pet foods aren't required to have "pre-market approval" by the FDA, although the agency's guidelines say it is supposed to ensure that ingredients are safe and appropriate. The FDA says it generally investigates pet food-making facilities only when it has a good reason. The first time the FDA inspected Menu Foods' Emporia, Kan., plant where the tainted foods were produced was after Menu Foods alerted authorities to the contamination problem. The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine regulates pet food labels, in some cases following rules established by the Assn. of American Feed Control Officials. In addition to guaranteeing certain nutrients, the FDA requires that pet food makers: Use at least 95% of an ingredient that is part of the name. So a food called "Beef for Dogs" or "Tuna Cat Food" must contain at least 95% beef or tuna, not including the "condiments" and water used to make it. List ingredients in order of weight. When two ingredients are used in a name FDA guidelines use the example "Lobster and Salmon for Cats" the first ingredient must be dominant, meaning there has to be more lobster in that can than salmon. Use at least 25% of an ingredient that is in the name if it also is called "dinner," "platter," "entree," "formula" or something similar. That means that only a quarter of "Beef Dinner for Dogs" has to be beef. Animal activists have called the rules confusing and misleading. Some charge that commercially manufactured pet food can contain meat from sick or diseased animals and other inferior ingredients. But Ron Faoro, president of the California Veterinary Medical Assn. and a veterinarian in Santa Barbara, said he had found most commercial pet food to be safe and healthful. "Pet food in general is of far higher quality than what people think," Faoro said. "People think it's ground-up lungs and claws and beaks. That may exist with the real low-end generic foods, but I think that [other] foods are expensive because they do put good-quality ingredients into them." Home-cooked pet meals also have their perils, because they can fail to offer proper nutritional balance, said Meri Stratton-Phelps, a veterinarian and owner of All Creatures Veterinary Nutrition Consulting in West Sacramento. Raw food diets, she added, have been associated with salmonella poisoning. "Nothing is 100% safe," she said. 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