Posted on 05/09/2005 6:46:54 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
Paula Roemer knows most people don't understand her passion for animals.
Some of her North Seattle neighbors aren't thrilled about the crows she attracts to her back yard with bird seed, she says. When she rescued a scraggly kitten abandoned on a pathway while she was vacationing in Israel 13 years ago, people reacted with disdain.
So when a neighbor's dog mauled and killed that same beloved cat, Yofi, last year, Roemer barely mentioned it to people she knew. But now she feels that she found one person who understood: a judge.
Last week, Seattle District Court Judge Barbara Linde ordered the dog's owner to pay $45,480.12 to Roemer for the cat's death.
"Not too many [people] value a cat," said Roemer, a retired, 71-year-old former junior-high-school teacher, who lives alone except for her animals. "You know what I'm saying: 'It's just a cat.' And I'm very, very thankful we had a judge who knew that a cat had some value."
The judgment may be among the largest amounts nationwide in lawsuits over the loss of pets, according to Roemer's attorney, Adam Karp of Bellingham, a specialist in cases involving animals.
"I do think it's the largest in our state for any type of animal, excluding, say, a Thoroughbred or other commercially valuable pets, or service animals," Karp said. "And I'm pretty sure it's the largest for a cat."
In 2003, a Snohomish County couple was awarded $25,000 in emotional damages when someone who was supposed to care for a horse and goats instead sold them for slaughter.
In a recent Texas case, the owner of a Mini-Schnauzer was awarded $10,000 in emotional distress when the dog escaped from a Petco grooming parlor and was hit by a car, according to Associated Press reports. In one New York case, the court found that a good dog's value increased with age, and its owner should be compensated accordingly upon the pet's untimely death.
The defendant in the cat case, Wallace Gray, pleaded guilty to an animal-control violation last October in Seattle Municipal Court. Court documents say he admitted that his dog killed a neighbor's cat in February 2004 "due in part to my negligence."
Gray said he just learned of the financial judgment yesterday from a reporter. "This is way out of hand. This is absolutely crazy," he said.
Gray said he had already served 21 days in jail and three months under house arrest for the animal-control violation. He wasn't living in the house with his dog at the time of the attack, he said, and the acquaintance who was taking care of his dog left town before the trial.
"I'm sorry she lost her cat, but I had no control over it," Gray said.
Gray added that he thought the punishment was excessive considering that dogs and cats are natural enemies.
"Cats eat birds and dogs eat cats," he said.
Gray did not appear in court for the case and was not represented by a lawyer, Karp said.
Judge Linde could not be reached for comment.
While Roemer predicts she won't collect a nickel from the judgment, she and her attorney take the ruling as a message that even cats count. She plans to give any money from the case to an animal-protection group.
Her lawyer says the public perception of cats puts them at a disadvantage.
"I think there tends to be a culture that says dogs are more of man's best friends and cats are aloof and can't bond," Karp said. "But if anyone has ever shared their bonds with a cat, they know that's utter nonsense. I think our society tends to devalue cats, and I think the judgment recognizes that cats, too, can mean the world to people."
Still, Roemer said, that can't erase the painful memory of what happened last year in her back yard, or the loss of a cat that slept in her bed, curled up against her stomach, nearly every day since she rescued it.
Roemer was in Israel visiting friends in 1992 when she came across a heap of matted fur covered with flies. Roemer stopped to offer the cat some water from a bottle cap.
"Here's this one cat that saw me as a savior and I couldn't walk away from her," she said.
She named the cat Yofi and finagled her way through customs and back into the United States, with the tiny white and black kitten in a pet carrier.
Back in Seattle, Yofi became a fixture in Roemer's house, she said, befriending other cats and dogs she adopted.
Then, Roemer said, one day in February 2004 she heard screeching coming from her back yard and saw a neighbor's dog, a chow, holding Yofi in its jaws and shaking the cat. Roemer said she tried to rescue Yofi but lost sight of the cat while trying to save another one of her cats and get the dog out of the yard. She found the cat dead in another neighbor's yard the next day.
Roemer said Gray's dog had repeatedly escaped from its yard before the incident, partly because a fence on the side of the yard had large gaps.
Roemer said she sued Gray out of grief and frustration.
"I didn't go to court to get money," she said. "I could either burn his house down or I could go and shoot his dogs in front of him and shoot him, or I could shoot myself. So I decided to be rational and get a lawyer."
Now, the cremated ashes of Yofi rest in a small ceramic jar on a table in the living room of her small Northgate house. Behind it stands a large card with Yofi's name written across it and a montage of photos of Yofi inside.
The house is a testimony to her devotion to animals. A framed, hand-painted portrait of eight cats she has owned hangs in her bedroom. Boxes of cat-food cans rest on a spare bed in another room. A piece of cardboard sits in her living room near the television with detailed instructions on how to take care of the animals in case she can't.
Roemer still has the company of her other animals, a Husky mix named Ginger and three black-and-white cats, including the latest addition, Patsy Cline. She adopted that cat several months after Yofi died, when it cried one day as she looked at it.
She knows some people may find her odd for her love for animals. But she's past making apologies.
"It sounds crazy that I value my animals more than I do people. I help out people, too," she said. "It's just that in my personal life, I get along better with animals."
Well, it seems to me you worship the opinions of worhtless judges. We have seen in the last few years the usurping of power (I know, not in this case); we have seen them allow the starvation of innocents, and make outrageous awards for stupid cats.
I respect the laws made by the people we elect to represent us; when the courts get out of control, you're right; I don't respect that and I believe that the people have a right to fight back.
Or an ambulance chasing shark
That's how I feel about my 2 boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, my dogs are in doggie heaven, so kitties are probably there too.
Pepe Le Peu would have to go to court.
The woman in Seattle who sued....let's see....how much you want to bet she drives a Subaru with Kerry/Edwards, Iraq War No or War=Terrorism stickers on the back?
And if you don't think the reason the urns were created and kept was solely as a show piece for the trial in order to bump up the payout you are naïve.
HA, you bounced the dog on its head a few times?? Good for you. Is the dog owner suing you??
I believe the Pope would disagree with you.
Any dog or two legged vermin that harmed our cat would not make it home alive.
Did this owner do everything she could to protect her cat, such as putting up a fence to keep out the neighbor's dog?
....and maybe a kiss on the nose from his new fan? Thank you, and the same to you and Bob.
Doesn't matter. It's the dog owner's resposibility to ensure that his dangerous animal (yes, dogs are dangerous, they KILL PEOPLE) was restrained in a manner to make sure that the animal did not escape and harm other people and property.
To say otherwise is to say that if some fool shoots his gun into the air on Cinco De Mayo and the bullet comes back down and hits you in your car, he is not liable if you didn't have your seatbelt on since you didn't do everything you could to protect yourself from possible injury. Or that the burglar who broke into your house is not liable since you chose to have glass windows that allowed him to enter - obviously, you didn't do everything you could to protect your house, so he shouldn't be liable, right?
I'm sure he and I would disagree on a lot of things. But if it makes you sleep better at night then believe what ever you'd like to.
and we can't count ballots correctly either.
Obviously this idiot didn't learn his lesson; hopefully this judgment will teach him not to allow his predatory beasts to have contact with neighbors' beloved pets. I know this will sound irrational to some on the board, but I, for one, am glad for the punitive judgment. The cat's death was unnecessary and totally preventable.
Only in Seattle.
45 GRAND.... Now thats a lot of pussy..
"Roemer said Gray's dog had repeatedly escaped from its yard before the incident, partly because a fence on the side of the yard had large gaps."
I could understand the dog getting out once, until the owner had time to fix the gaps in the fence. But the fact that the dog escaped repeatedly and the fence was never fixed shows complete negligence on the dog owner's part.
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