Results
Title |
Author | Citation | Alternate Citation | Summary | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Just Say Neigh: A Call for Federal Regulation of Byproduct Disposal By the Equine Industry | Mary W. Craig | 12 Animal L. 193 (2005) |
This article discusses the thousands of foals born each year that are bred for industrial purposes. These foals must then be disposed of as unwanted byproducts of the equine industry. PMU mares are bred to collect urine rich with hormones used in the production of a drug to treat menopausal symptoms. Nurse mares are bred to produce milk to feed foals other than their own. If adoptive homes cannot be found quickly, both industries dispose of their equine byproducts by slaughtering the foals, and sometimes the mares, for profit or convenience. This paper calls for an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act enabling the Department of Agriculture to regulate the PMU and nurse mare farms, and requiring both industries to responsibly dispose of these horses. |
Article | |
| Justice by and through Mosiman v. Vercher | 518 P.3d 131 (2022), review denied, 370 Or. 789, 524 P.3d 964 (2023) | 321 Or.App. 439 (Or.App., 2022) | The Oregon Court of Appeals, as a matter of first impression, considers whether a horse has the legal capacity to sue in an Oregon court. The Executive Director of Sound Equine Options (SEO), Kim Mosiman, filed a complaint naming a horse (“Justice”)as plaintiff with the Mosiman acting as his guardian, and claiming negligence against his former owner. In the instant appeal, Mosiman challenges the trial court's grant of defendant's motion to dismiss. In 2017, defendant's neighbor persuaded defendant to seek veterinary care for her horse. The veterinarian found the horse to be about 300 pounds underweight with significant walking difficulties and other maladies. The horse was voluntarily surrendered to Mosiman who eventually nursed the animal back to good health. In 2018, Mosiman filed a complaint on Justice's behalf for a single claim of negligence per se, alleging that defendant violated the Oregon anti-cruelty statute ORS 167.330(1) by failing to provide minimum care. Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that a horse lacks the legal capacity to sue and the court granted dismissal. Specifically, the trial court expressed concern over the "profound implications" of allowing a non-human animal to sue and stated that an appellate court could come to a different conclusion by "wad[ing] into the public policy debate involving the evolution of animal rights." Here, the appellate court first found no statutory authority for a court to appoint a guardian for an animal because "a horse inherently lacks self-determination and the ability to express its wishes in a manner the legal system would recognize." The animal has a "distinctive incapacity" that sets it apart from humans with legal disabilities that require appointment of a legal guardian. The court reaffirmed the law's treatment of animals as personal property and found no support in the precedent for permitting an animal to vindicate its own legal rights. While Oregon's animal welfare laws recognize animals as beings capable of feeling pain, this makes them a special type of property and imposes duties on the human owners rather than rights to the animal victims. The court held that only human beings and legislatively-created legal entities are persons with the capacity to sue under Oregon common law. The court emphasized that this holding does not prevent Oregon laws from ever recognizing an animal as a legal person, but the courts are not the appropriate vehicle to do that. Accordingly, this court affirmed the trial court's judgment dismissing the complaint with prejudice. | Case | |
| Justice for Animals, Inc. v. Lenoir County SPCA, Inc. | 168 N.C. App. 298, 607 S.E.2d 317 aff'd on other grounds, 360 N.C. 48, 619 S.E.2d 494 (2005) | 2005 WL 221226 (N.C. 2005) |
An animal control facility's practice of euthanizing feral cats without holding them for 72 hours was challenged by a non-profit organization. The animal control facility's method for determining if a cat is feral consisted only of poking the animal and gaging its reaction. The trial court dismissed the claim, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision. |
Case | |
| Justice for Animals, Inc. v. Robeson County | 164 N.C. App. 366, 595 S.E.2d 773 (2004) | 2004 WL 1091902 (N.C. 2004) |
Non-profit and advocate challenged the improper treatment/euthanasia of animals and complaint was dismissed. On appeal, the Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff's qualified as "aggrieved persons" within the statute, but that all administrative remedies were not sought. Affirmed. |
Case | |
| Justice for Dusty: Implementing Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Animal Abusers | Kirsten E. Brimer | 113 Penn St. L. Rev. 649 (Fall 2008) |
This Comment discusses the problem with the current punishments for animal abuse violations and analyzes why states should adopt statutes that require mandatory minimums in animal brutality convictions. Part II focuses on the psychological problems associated with animal cruelty, including the relationship between animal cruelty and violence toward humans. Part III examines the structure of current animal abuse legislation. Part IV concentrates on the advantages of applying mandatory minimum sentences to the anticruelty provisions of animal abuse statutes. |
Article | |
| Justice v. State | 532 S.W.3d 862 (Tex. App. 2017) | 2017 WL 4697920 (Tex. App. Oct. 19, 2017) | In this Texas appeal, defendant Brent Justice contends that his conviction for a single count of cruelty to a nonlivestock animal was based on insufficient evidence. The incident stemmed from defendant's filming of his co-defendant, Ashley Richards, torturing and killing of a newly-weaned puppy. Justice and Richards ran an escort business named "Bad Gurls Entertainment" that focused on the production and distribution of animal "crush" videos (fetish videos involving the stomping, torturing, and killing of various kinds of animals in a prolonged manner). The evidence that supported the conviction involved the confessions of both perpetrators and the video of the puppy being tortured and ultimately killed. On appeal, defendant argues that he cannot be found guilty since was not the principal involved in the offense. This court was unconvinced, finding that the evidence was sufficient to support a state jail felony since "[t]here is no shortage of evidence that appellant aided Richards in her cruelty," including handing Richards the knife and filming the killing. The one issue in defendant's "hybrid" pro se and represented brief on appeal that the court granted was related to a finding that defendant used a "deadly weapon." After the filing of initial briefs, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Prichard v. State, No. PD-0712-16, --- S.W.3d ---, 2017 WL 2791524 (Tex. Crim. App. June 28, 2017), held that “a deadly weapon finding is disallowed when the recipient or victim is nonhuman.” Thus, in the case at hand, the court deleted the deadly weapon finding since it was directed at the puppy rather than a human. The case was remanded for a new hearing on punishment only since the conviction was affirmed for a state jail felony. | Case | |
| Justice, an American Quarter Horse, by and through his Guardian, Kim MOSIMAN, Plaintiff, v. Gwendolyn VERCHER, Defendant. | This Oregon complaint seeks economic and non-economic damages for Justice, an American Quarter Horse from Oregon, by and through his guardian. Justice suffered extreme pain, distress, and permanent injury due to the criminal neglect of Defendant Gwendolyn Vercher. According to the facts issued in the complaint, Defendant denied Justice adequate food and shelter for months, abandoning him to starve and freeze. As a result of this neglect, Justice was left debilitated and emaciated. Plaintiffs' attorneys plead negligence per se based on violation of Oregon's anti-cruelty statute. The attached opinion letter from Washington County Circuit Court grants defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of capacity to sue. In an issue of first impression, the court ruled that finding that a horse, or any nonhuman animal, has the capacity to sue would have "profound implications." In addition, the court found that a non-human animal lacks the capacity to "accept[] legal responsibilities." The court left it to the Oregon Legislature or the appellate court to wade into a policy debate on animal rights. | Pleading | |||
| Kanab City v. Popowich | 194 P.3d 198, (Utah App.,2008) | 2008 UT App 337 (2008); 2008 WL 4260702 |
In this Utah case, the defendant appeals the decision of the district court finding him guilty on four counts of failing to maintain a city dog license and one count of running an illegal kennel. In December 2005, a Kanab City animal control officer responded to numerous complaints of barking dogs at Defendant's residence. This officer observed four dogs over the age of three months on the premises during two separate visits to Defendant's home that month and on subsequent random visits in the following months. On appeal, defendant argued that the city ordinance on which his conviction for operating an illegal kennel is based is unconstitutionally vague. This court disagreed, finding that an ordinary person reading the ordinance would understand that, in order to keep more than two dogs over the age of three months in the same residence, a citizen must register for a kennel permit. |
Case | |
| Kangaroo Culling in Australia | Jordan Sosnowski |
Brief Summary of Kangaroo Culling in Australia |
Topical Introduction | ||
| Kangas v. Perry | 620 N.W.2d 429 (Wis. 2000) |
Plaintiff, a passenger of a horse-drawn sled sued the owner of the property on which the accident occurred, as well as the owner of the horses and the sled for the injuries she suffered when thrown from the sled. The Court of Appeals found that the equine immunity statute provided protection for the owner of the horse against tort liability. The plain language of the statute provides that immunity from civil liability is available to all persons , “ including an equine activity sponsor or equine professional…”; thus, protection is not limited only to those who are sponsors or professionals, rather they are examples of types of people to whom the statute applies. |
Case |
