Permission granted to crosspost.
August 31, 2009
Members of Texas Humane Legislation Network and Animal Legal Defense Fund
are behind the Mandatory Spay/Neuter and Intact Pet Permits recently passed
in San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth. The article below is from their own
mouths - if you had any doubts as to their agenda. If animals have legal
rights equal to humans, it would be impossible to use them for anything -
with that use equating to slavery. Certainly no breeding for any reason.
Think about it.
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Animal law specialists speak for those who can't
BY ELIZABETH BASSETT
August 10, 2009
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=10761When it comes to animals in the Texas courts of law, the most frustrating
thing may be that decisions are largely based on a precedent set in 1891.
The case, Heiligmann v. Rose, dictated through the state Supreme Court if an
animal is wrongly killed all the owner can recoup is the market value of the
animal. The owner can't get sentimental value or emotional damages, and yet
the destruction of an inanimate object like a family heirloom can warrant
huge sums be awarded.
"You're going to allow someone to recover sentimental value for a brooch but
not your dog?" asked Randy Turner, partner in the Hurst firm Turner &
McKenzie P.C.
That ruling is something Turner and other animal law specialists have their
eyes set on. Turner said he has cases he wants to take to the Texas Supreme
Court to try to change that ruling, and Arlington solo practitioner Donald
Feare said he and other attorneys have been working for years to find a way
to make a change. A lot has changed since 1891, Feare said; today, people's
animals are family members "but we don't recognize that."
Turner and Feare are the two attorneys in Tarrant County who practice large
amounts of animal law. While the Animal Law Section of the State Bar of
Texas was established in 1996 and it has a robust membership, both Turner
and Feare say that the two of them plus attorney Yolanda Eisenstein of
Dallas handle the most cases by a wide margin.
"It's one of those things of hey, no one else is doing it, so you get all
the calls," Feare said.
Animal law is centered on animal welfare, Feare said, not animal rights. An
attorney who handles animal cases must keep in mind the welfare of the
creatures who cannot speak for themselves.
"Whatever we do to them, we can do and get away with unless we stop us," he
said, "because they can't."
Finding people who can fight in the courtroom for animals is difficult,
though. Turner said the majority of animal law cases are done pro bono,
since there's usually no way to win back more than the animal's market
value - which may be an incredibly small sum for a dog or cat - or
attorney's
fees. Turner handles other cases, like personal injury, to cover overhead,
as does Feare, and it can be hard to convince new attorneys to join the
ranks when it's nearly impossible (at least in Texas) to make a living by
doing animal law.
Animal law also is a field that covers a range of law types. Turner said
when he started taking on animal law cases, he found himself having to refer
back to information he hasn't used in years, since issues of constitutional
law, criminal law, trade practices, contract law and all other sorts of law
types come up, ranging from city ordinances to international trade.
Despite the small number of attorneys who handle animal law regularly, the
field is gaining more visibility. The Animal Legal Defense Fund shows a long
list of law schools that offer an animal law course or have offered a
course.
"It's definitely a growing area because when I was in law school, I don't
think there was a single school that taught animal law," Turner said.
Feare, who is an adjunct professor of animal law for Texas Wesleyan
University's School of Law, recently served as a special prosecutor for the
nearly 500 dogs seized in Montague County and taken in by the Humane Society
of North Texas. Instances like that and other high-profile cases in recent
years - like NFL player Michael Vick's participation in a dog fighting
operation - have prompted more media attention to animal seizure or neglect
cases and also are making the public more aware of the need for animal law
practitioners, he said.
"The caseload is just phenomenal now," he said.
The path into animal law is paved with passion. Feare, who was raised in
Arlington, has a background that includes doing wildlife rehabilitation on
the state and federal level and 15 years as a police officer, he said. He's
also an accomplished wildlife photographer. Turner was
always an animal lover, and after graduating from law school he volunteered
with the Humane Society of North Texas. After they found out he was a
lawyer, he said, they put him on the board and that exposure to cruelty and
meeting animal activists prompted him to become professionally involved.
Representing animals doesn't always mean representing their owners.
Sometimes, as with Feare's Montague County case, it means working to get the
animals into better custody. Sometimes representing what's best for animals
means representing others who work for animals, like humane societies, or in
Turner's case, animal activists, ranging from airline pilots to physicians
to college students who may protest in some way. Turner represents activists
who may be accused of trespassing or the recipients of selective
enforcement, he said, and often this work is pro bono.
"An animal rights activist might be a retired school teacher or college
student," he said. "They just don't have $300 to throw at lawyers."
The stories that come from animal law attorneys are sometimes filled with
sadness; a person whose dog died from negligence at the vet's office, but
suing the vet means only getting back $100, the market value of the dog. But
there also are other stories, like chasing down escaped emus or traveling to
Zimbabwe to try anti-poaching techniques on the endangered black rhino.
While much of current state animal law is still set on the idea an animal is
a piece of property, attorneys and the general public have changed views and
work is being done to treat animals with their welfare in mind. After all,
that's what humans want, and we're not that much different from our dogs or
other pets, Feare said.
"We are an animal," he said.
