Pet Cemetery Sale Fails as Group of Buyers Sues SPCA for $1.75 Million

A lengthy campaign by pet lovers to buy a Calabasas animal cemetery collapsed Friday as they filed a $1.75-million suit against the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals over a disputed purchase agreement.

Lingering distrust between the Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity Inc. group and subdividers who had also sought to purchase the 10-acre Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park from the SPCA was blamed by both sides for the conflict.

The nonprofit, 1,200-member group is made up of people who have animals buried at the pet cemetery. Members had hoped to acquire the 56-year-old pet park from the SPCA for $94,000 as a way to protect the cemetery’s 30,000 animal graves from development “forever.”

But SPCA officials said they terminated their escrow agreement with the group four days before last Monday’s scheduled closure because the animal lovers refused to let the society solicit comments on a long-term cemetery operation and management plan from neighboring developers.

SPCA lawyer Richard Marsh said Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity leaders balked at allowing the society to review the management proposal with subdividers Jon Galiher and William Mingot, who own property adjacent to the cemetery at 5068 Old Scandia Lane.

“We were entitled to subject the plan to free input without any restrictions,” Marsh said.

“But they asked us to look at it in a vacuum. They knew that we had assured Galiher and Mingot we would make reasonable provisions for a maintenance plan. We felt the process should have been open to public inspection--to Mr. Galiher and everyone else.”

Pet group lawyer Dennis Polen, however, said his organization’s contract with the SPCA did not call for such a review.

Polen said pet lovers have been distrustful of Galiher and Mingot since the pair first sought to buy the cemetery from the SPCA two years ago. Although Galiher repeatedly promised that that he wanted to use the park only as a “buffer” for a proposed housing tract, pet owners had feared the graves might be bulldozed, he said.

Galiher might have become entitled to a future claim on the cemetery if he had been given the right to approve or reject the management plan, Polen said.

Besides monetary damages, the breach-of-contract suit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, asks that the SPCA be ordered to reopen the escrow and proceed with the proposed sale to the animal lovers, Polen said. Neither Galiher nor Mingot is named in the suit.

“We’re terribly disappointed. At the same time, we’re not totally surprised,” Polen said.

Marsh said SPCA board members now intend to put the Calabasas pet cemetery, which is Los Angeles County’s largest and oldest animal burial area, back on the market. He said the SPCA has decided its job is to deal with live animals, not dead ones.

“We want to open up the property to any responsible pet cemetery operator and sell it under the same conditions that call for its permanent maintenance,” Marsh said.

Marsh said Polen’s group will be eligible to submit a new purchase offer. He said Galiher and Mingot do not qualify as cemetery “operators,” however.