Chasing Justice

The board of the red brick Manhattan co-op wanted to evict Berry, arguing it had a solid case. After all, the building’s lease clearly barred pets, so it seemed the West Highland white terrier would have to go.

But Eric Feinberg, the pet lawyer, knew the law.

Under New York City statutes, an apartment dweller can keep a pet if the animal is visible for three months and legal proceedings don’t begin during that period.

Berry’s owner had regularly paraded her through the lobby--past the porter who played with the friendly dog--Feinberg told the city hearing officer. He said that Berry and her owner, Phyllis Holod, shared the same bench in the co-op’s garden, for all to see.

The official ruled in Feinberg’s favor.

“It was an open-and-shut case. She had the dog for over seven years,” said the cheerful, slightly rumpled lawyer who perennially looks as if he’s just played with puppies.

“Berry is my family,” explained Holod, who lives alone. “I would have moved before I gave her up.”

To such time-honored specialties as taxes, trust and estates, divorces and the criminal defense bar, add animal-rights law.

Some 52 million dogs and 60 million cats live in various stages of harmony in the U.S. New York City alone is home to about 1 million dogs and perhaps 2 million cats, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Back when man and beast shared companionship in caves, the bond was clear: Man fed beast. Beast protected man.

That was before dogs chased in-line skaters, landlords tried to evict pet owners from rent-controlled apartments, grieving clients filed malpractice suits against veterinarians and cities passed leash and pooper-scooper laws.

Filter in the nation’s shrinking open space, thickets of conflicting local regulations, the full range of human emotions. Pets often are viewed as surrogate children and can become pawns in messy divorces, sparking monumental struggles over who keeps Fido or Fluffy.

Tainted Dog Food Led to a Career Shift

“More and more, people are getting interested in the practice,” said Michael Rotsten, an Encino attorney who gave up defending criminals in 1992 after his Alaskan malamute, Taigo, ate salmonella-tainted dog food.

Rotsten threatened to sue the store. He collected $1,000 for emotional distress and $250 to cover the cost of his vet bills. With encouragement from animal-rights groups, his full-time clients soon became mastiffs and beagles instead of muggers and burglars.

“What’s driving all of this is the incredible bond between people and their pets, along with the need for the attorneys to have new venues,” said Jim Wilson, a lawyer and a veterinary consultant in Pennsylvania.

Now, at least six law schools offer courses in animal rights, and bar associations in New York, Michigan and Texas have established committees dealing with the subject.

“The satisfaction is representing creatures that need to have their voices heard,” said Gilda I. Mariani, head of the New York City Bar Assn.’s committee on legal issues pertaining to animals.

Law students learn that the field is far more complicated than just pet cases. It encompasses broad issues, ranging from the treatment of animals in laboratories and on farms to hunting and fishing controversies.

“Animal law is in its infancy, like where environmental law was 25 years ago,” said Laura Wilensky, communications director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit group based in Petaluma.

“It is a very exciting time,” added Pamela Frasch, director of the fund’s anticruelty division. “You have to be very creative. It really is a chance to write some law.”

Frasch heads a unique program designed to help district attorneys handle animal abuse cases, which traditionally receive little attention and limited resources.

ALDF not only supplies legal briefs and expert witnesses, but also has a corps of volunteer lawyers ready to be deputized as special prosecutors to try the cases.

In July, when part of an elevator tower used to carry workers up the side of a building in Times Square collapsed, steel pierced the roof of a nearby hotel, killing an elderly woman. People were forced to flee so fast that their pets were left behind. Times Square was closed for days, and the owners grew frantic. A coalition of animal-rights lawyers went to court, and the timetable to rescue the animals was sped up. All those pets emerged unharmed. But living in the high-powered New York real estate market has proved risky for other pets.

“All the time, landlords try to throw out people with pets,” Feinberg explained. “It’s a way of getting a long-time tenant, especially a rent-stabilized or rent-controlled tenant, out.”

Feinberg had been representing poor people in housing court when he bought Rascal, a terrier.

It changed his life.

When he took the dog to the park, other owners came over to admire the rare breed. Learning Feinberg was a lawyer, they started pouring out their problems. Feinberg soon was back in court--on the side of a cat facing eviction. He argued that since his human client was diabetic and disabled, the cat was therapeutic and necessary for her health.

The cat stayed.

“We get five to 10 calls a day from people with landlord-tenant problems,” said Marilyne Mason, president of Legal Action for Animals, a lawyers’ group that operates a hot line for pet owners. “For the elderly, the threat of losing . . . a longtime pet can be really terrifying.”

Callers are reassured that defenses exist.

“A person with a mental or physical impairment is entitled to be given a reasonable accommodation,” said Karen Copeland, an experienced animal-rights lawyer practicing in New York.

“Pets will fall into that category if you have a medical professional who certifies the person needs to keep the pet in the home.”

Challenging the Idea of Pets as Property

Under that umbrella, Copeland has successfully staved off eviction of cat owners with AIDS; an apartment dweller with a hearing problem whose dog alerted its owner when the doorbell rang; a woman with emphysema who stopped smoking because of her dog; and people with diabetes, depression and other diseases.

“I always ask for a picture of the dog. It helps inspire me,” Copeland said. “I feel people have a right to have pets in their homes. I think it is an inalienable right that goes back to the caveman.”

Traditionally, the law has treated animals as property. But animal-rights lawyers challenge that the concept is outmoded because pets often are thought of as children.

A study of 122 families appearing in the January issue of the Journal of Mental Health Counseling reported that almost one-third said they felt closer to their dog than to any other family member.

“There has been a gradual procession--equal rights for men, then equal rights for African Americans, then women’s rights, gay rights,” Mason said. “I think the next phase has to be animals.”

“Human beings should not be the only creatures to have fundamental legal rights,” argued Steven M. Wise, a Boston-based pet law pioneer who began taking cases in 1981. “When people lose companion animals to veterinary malpractice, they should be eligible for damages for emotional distress and loss of companionship.

“Often times, veterinary malpractice cases can be as complicated as human malpractice cases,” he added. “They should be compensated for the real injuries they suffered. They lost a family member.”

In growing recognition of the bond between pets and their owners, amounts paid in lawsuits have begun to rise. When Wise started representing animals, settlements in malpractice cases against vets were in the range of $1,000 or less. Amounts have at least tripled.

After a dog with heartworm was falsely diagnosed and mistreated, its owner collected $10,000. When a United Parcel Service truck hit a boxer who almost lost a leg, the case was settled for the same amount.

There was the cat who was taken to the animal hospital just to get his teeth cleaned, only to be declawed and cut open for spaying. It cost the vet $7,000 to settle that suit. It turned out the vet previously had neutered the cat.

Another veterinarian diagnosed fleas when an exotic serval cat started scratching. But he sprinkled on flea powder designed for cows. The mistake cost him $15,000 after the cat died.

Finally, consider the case of the California woman in a clown suit and the cow who liked to roam.

The woman was directing would-be buyers to the house she wanted to sell near Irvine when the cow appeared on the highway after escaping from its pasture through a defective fence.

The woman tried to wave traffic around the cow. But the animal bumped her with its head, throwing her into a parked car.

She ended up collecting $15,000 for back and other injuries from the cow’s owner, the owner of the pasture and the pasture’s manager.

The name of the cow?

“Obnoxious,” said Rotsten, because it was constantly escaping.