The article concludes that keeping emotion-based damages out of pet litigation is, ultimately, what is best for pets themselves. Adding new, uncertain liability to pet litigation would cause the price of pet welfare services and products prices to rise. If owners cannot afford to pay these higher costs, then many pets will not get the care they need.

[Phil Goldberg, Stanford Journal of Animal Law & Policy]

Emotional-distress damages for pet injury is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Texas’ Supreme Court decided to distinguish between dogs and heirlooms “such as a wedding veil, pistol” — this is Texas — “jewelry, handmade bedspreads and other items going back several generations.”

Noting that the Medlens “find it odd that Texas law would permit sentimental damages for loss of an heirloom but not an Airedale,” [Justice Don] Willett rejoined that it would be even odder if Texans could recover wrongful-death damages for the loss of a Saint Bernard but not for a brother Bernard.

Laconically noting that “the law is no stranger to incongruity,” Willett explained that “permitting sentiment-based damages for destroyed heirloom property portends nothing resembling the vast public-policy impact of allowing such damages in animal-tort cases.”

Texas rejects animal companionship damages is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Torts roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Texas: “Dog Owners Can Recover Sentimental-Value Damages for Loss of Pet” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Late [July 31], the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in the case of McMahon v. Craig, holding unequivocally that California law does not permit an animal owner to recover damages for his or her emotional distress at the injury or death of an animal caused by negligence, and that there can be no recovery of damages for loss of the companionship of a non-human companion.

The report is first-hand, for it was blogger Wallace who represented the winning side in the case. Congratulations are in order.

Noneconomic damages and pets is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Emotional value of lost pets, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“They need to have equal rights” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Stephanie Mencimer is predictably in favor of more litigation (singling out “Ted Frank and his Overlawyered buddies” for some reason, though there is only one Walter Olson), but her reasoning is unusual. Mencimer tells the tale of her battle with a next-door neighbor pet spa, and complains that there is a shortage of kennels, which, she says, causes sub-par care of dogs. Lawsuits, she concludes, would fix this problem. That she thinks raising the cost of providing a service will solve the problem of a shortage of service providers bespeaks a certain economic illiteracy that perhaps explains her reflexive opposition to liability reform.

Non-economic damages for animals (again) is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system