Vets Groups Oppose Award of Non-Economic Damages in Police Dog Shooting

Maeve Flanagan





At first glance, it seems that veterinarian groups would be advocates for the legal rights of animals, but this is not the case.  These groups do not want the legal status of animals to change because they would have to get more expensive insurance policies to protect against potential lawsuits such as the case above.  In response, pet care costs would rise.  In an articled titled “Non-Economic Damages in Pet Lawsuits,” authors Cook and Hochstadt state: “We believe that extending available remedies beyond economic damages would be inappropriate and ultimately harm animals.”

Non-economic damages will drive veterinarians to pursue a higher standard of care, like the standard of care that is used by regular medical professionals. The article states that there would be an increase in lawsuits, which would mean that veterinarians would be forced to partake in court proceedings, taking away from their time treating animals.  This is not necessarily true.  If legal reforms allow for non-economic damages in claims against veterinarians for negligence, these veterinarians will simply be held to a higher standard of care, which is not a bad thing.  When the damages in litigating claims against veterinarians are low, it becomes easier for the vets to just pay the fine than to actually fix the behavior that caused the problem.  The $607,500 award here is high enough so that veterinarians are deterred from simply paying the fine and moving on.  They will have to fix what is wrong or it will cost them.


3 Responses

  1. […] Maeve Flanagan In January of 2010, a Frederick County deputy, Timothy Brooks, drove to the home of Roger and Sandra Jenkins to serve a civil warrant on their son. The Jenkins’ chocolate Labrador re…  […]

  2. The concern I have is that if the insurance premiums are raised, aside from perhaps a better standard of care to avoid large lawsuits, won’t the rates the vets charge for regular services have to increase to cover the premiums? Does this potentially exclude vet care from a larger part of the low-income population? If we don’t have an animal medicaid, are we taking a step down a path towards a system even more confused and over-priced than human medical care?

  3. […] Our thanks to Animal Blawg, where this post was originally published on December 13, […]

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: