Man Hopes to Take Big Bite Out of Vets Over Dead Dog

Marc Bluestone changed his life for her. He restructured his house, built a home office and refused to travel anywhere she wasn’t allowed. It was “pure love.”

But Shane, his beloved Labrador, died five years ago. Bluestone, 61, blames All-Care Animal Referral Center for her death and is waging a crusade to “bring justice under the law.” Thus far, he has spent more than $375,000 in an effort to prove the center’s veterinarians were responsible for his dog’s death.

Fountain Valley-based All-Care has faced scrutiny in the past. In August, one of its veterinarians was disciplined for allowing an unlicensed technician to perform medical procedures. Although the animal hospital has faced a flurry of small-claims cases, Bluestone is the first to bring its officials face to face with a jury.

At issue is whether the veterinarians responsible for Shane’s care, Dr. Robert L. Rooks and Dr. Craig Bergstrom, intentionally harmed Bluestone’s pet by subjecting her to unnecessary medical procedures.

In January 1999, Bluestone of Sherman Oaks said he brought the 3-year-old dog to the nationally renowned center to cure her persistent seizures. But 2 1/2 months and $24,000 later, his dog was dead.

“My whole body is bleeding and it will be for life, with what was perpetrated with the killing of my Shane,” Bluestone said. “It just tears into my heart and soul so deep.”

Bluestone has hired a team of attorneys to prove All-Care, which handles about 30,000 pets every year, was up to no good. “This was man-made, all for the sake of making money,” he said.

His attorneys have alleged medical malpractice and fraud, and are seeking upward of $500,000 in damages. They say it was the clinic’s unnecessary medical procedures that killed Shane.

“They kept lying to [Bluestone] and deceiving him, because they figured he had deep pockets,” said his attorney, Terri Macellero.

Shane’s death affected Bluestone so profoundly, Macellero has argued in court, that his cardiologist warned that he is more susceptible to a stroke.

But attorneys for the animal hospital say the veterinarians did everything they could to save the Labrador and appease her owner, even letting him be in the cage with his dog.

“[Bluestone] has a rather unusual degree of attachment to his pet and blames us for it,” said Cliff Roberts, All-Care’s attorney. “This has been overlitigated from the beginning.”

Still, Bluestone is part of a growing trend of dog owners suing veterinarians for malpractice. In 2000, a court awarded a Costa Mesa woman $20,000 for emotional distress after a botched operation left her Rottweiler with broken teeth and mangled nails. Increasingly, courts are regarding pets less as property and more as family members.

“You don’t come into a courtroom and change the law, you go down to Sacramento to do that,” Roberts said. “What they’re asking for has nothing to do with reality.”

Bluestone said that regardless of the outcome of his case, he will open the Shane-Bluestone Foundation “so that all of the wonderful dogs that are placed on this Earth will be receiving the best health and care that they deserve in life.”