$1,000 Gift Settles Case of Dead Cats : Agreements: A woman’s small claims victory results in a donation to Childrens Hospital by the fumigation firm blamed for her pets’ demise.

Arline Glasser and Michael R. Lindford were furious with each other and ready to do battle when they came to the Van Nuys municipal courtroom Monday. They were on opposite sides in her lawsuit accusing his Long Beach pest control company of negligence in the deaths of her two cats during a fumigation job.

“That jerk,” Glasser muttered, moments before Lindford took the stand. Lindford was tight-lipped while disputing her allegations. Glasser wanted to collect $2,000 in damages--the maximum permissible under the law in a small claims court action. And he didn’t think his company should pay it.

But moments later, Glasser and Lindford were leaving the courthouse smiling, praising each other and exchanging pictures of their daughters. Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles will be $1,000 richer as a result of a settlement hastily negotiated by the two in a courthouse hallway.

“I think that’s a nice agreement, isn’t it?” asked Van Nuys Municipal Judge Kenneth Freeman, beaming from the bench. “I think everybody won--as much as possible--in this case.”

Freeman said he would rule against Lindford but offered the two parties an opportunity to negotiate their own settlement first.

At first, things didn’t look so rosy in the sad little accidental cat-killing case.

Glasser filed the lawsuit because her two cats were found dead when a termite fumigation tent was removed from her next-door neighbor’s house in North Hollywood last January. Glasser told the judge on Monday she had specifically warned the pest control company workers to watch out for her cats and had been told the cats were “up the street.”

Lindford, president of Division of Fumigation Inc., the fumigation company, told the judge that cats sometimes hide in houses that are about to be fumigated. Because cats are territorial, Lindford said, they would claw anyone who tried to remove them even if they could be found.

He added that the company had been absolved of any charges of negligence in the case by the Agriculture Commission, a state agency that investigates charges against fumigation companies.

But Freeman ruled that Lindford’s company was negligent for not telling Glasser that cats sometimes hide in homes while they are being fumigated. He invited the two warring parties to step outside to try to reach a monetary settlement.

Lindford came out of the courtroom and told Glasser he wanted nothing to do with the negotiations because he had decided to appeal the verdict.

But then Glasser said: “You give $1,000 to my favorite charity, and I’ll let you off the hook.” She named Childrens Hospital as her choice, noting that her week-old baby daughter died at the facility in 1967 from a congenital heart defect.

“We will donate it in your name,” Lindford, the father of five daughters, replied immediately. “That’s very beneficent of you.”