Man Sues Restaurant That Barred Dog

Sy Elliott clearly has an agenda as the founder of an organization that certifies service dogs for heart patients.

He says he relies on one himself. That would be his toy poodle, Messy Jessie, which transports Elliott’s heart medication in a container attached to a dog collar.

So after he and his poodle were turned away by a Mission Viejo restaurant, Elliott filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the restaurant and an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, demanding that four-legged servants like Jessie be recognized, much as guide dogs are for the blind.

“Ultimately, this is about disabled people being able to function in society,” said Elliott’s lawyer, Stephen K. Leathers.

But the restaurant owner has a different view.

“It’s a scam,” said Wray Crawford, owner of the Wings Restaurant. “He’s just trying to create business.”

Legal experts aren’t so sure, however, and that’s why Elliott and Leathers think they have a case. At issue is a sometimes gray area of a federal law--the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to admit dogs that service disabled people, yet does not define precisely what that means.

“To the extent that the law doesn’t specifically define a ‘service animal,’ it’s a matter that can be litigated,” said Liz Savage, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice.

But Mark Kelman, a law professor at Stanford University, said he doubts Elliott can win his case. The purpose of the act, Kelman said, is to break down barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in public life. The professor said he believes Elliott must prove he cannot take his pills without the dog.

Since 1975, according to Clark Pappas, program director for Canine Companions for Independence--the country’s largest provider of service dogs for disabled people other than the blind--his nonprofit group has provided more than 1,600 trained dogs for disabled people.

Among other things, he said, trained service animals help their masters by retrieving dropped items, turning light switches on and off and reacting to sounds like doorbells, smoke alarms and microwave timers.

Although he has not heard of dogs used to carry medications for heart patients, Pappas said: “I would not want to make a judgment call without knowing more.”

Elliott says Messy Jessie’s brush with the law came Dec. 10, 1997, when Elliott and his poodle arrived at Crawford’s steak-and-seafood restaurant. Told that he would not be served with a dog in tow, Elliott explained that he is disabled by a severe heart condition and relies on the dog, which is trained to bring him his heart pills in case he falls ill.

Crawford, however, recalls events differently.

“This guy comes into my restaurant, and demands to be seated immediately with a smelly, filthy poodle that looked like it hadn’t been washed in six or seven months,” Crawford said.

When Elliott wouldn’t leave, Crawford summoned two sheriff’s deputies, who ordered Elliott out, according to the lawsuit.

Elliott is founder of Heart Therapy Dogs International, a nonprofit Laguna Hills organization that certifies service dogs, including Messy Jessie, according to his attorney.

Asked why he can’t carry his own pills, Elliott said Messy Jessie’s assistance means the medication will never be forgotten when they go out. Elliott said the dog is trained to bring the pills within reach if an emergency arises.

“My dog saved my life,” says Elliott, telling how the dog came to the rescue when Elliott was experiencing a heart attack.

“He jumped on the bed and put [the medicine] in a place where I could get it,” Elliott said.