Animal Shelter Litigation, October 25, 2011

The UCLA Animal Law Program is pleased to announce its next event: Animal Shelter Litigation, which will feature presentations by two prominent attorneys who have achieved significant victories in animal shelter litigation matters:

Sheldon Eisenberg

Mr. Eisenberg is a partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in its commercial litigation department. He will be discussing his role in successfully suing the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care & Control to reinstate a volunteer rescuer whose right to “pull” animals from County shelters was revoked due to her criticism of the Department.

 

Bruce Wagman

Mr. Wagman is a partner at Schiff Hardin LLP in its litigation department. He will be discussing his victories in shelter litigation in the broader context of companion animal problems, such as hoarding and the use of gas chambers at animal shelters. Mr. Wagman will also discuss his role in successfully suing the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care & Control for its failure to hold owner-surrendered animals for the legally mandated holding period.

Please join us for this event, which will be held on October 25, 2011 from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the UCLA School of Law. There is no charge to attend the event, but it costs $11.00 to park at UCLA. Space is limited to individuals who have pre-registered due to the size of the room in which the event will be held. To submit a request to register for this event, please complete our online registration form at http://tinyurl.com/4445sus. If you are an attorney attending the event and wish to receive MCLE credit, please indicate such in the form. Attorneys wishing to receive MCLE credit should arrive early so that we can process the necessary paperwork.

UPDATE: Individuals interested in reviewing the speakers’ handouts for the presentation may find the materials online at our Box.net site.

Registrants will be notified of the status of their requests within one week of the submission. For further details about this event, please contact the UCLA Animal Law Program at animallaw@law.ucla.edu.

Directions to the UCLA School of Law:
Take the 405 to the Sunset Boulevard exit.
Sunset Boulevard (east) to Hilgard Avenue, turn right.
Follow Hilgard Avenue to the Westholme Drive (second light) entrance to the campus.
Turn right on Westholme Drive.
The parking kiosk is immediately on the right.
Please tell the attendant that you are attending an event at the Law School, and you will be directed to the nearest available parking lot. The parking charge per vehicle is $11.00.

UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider.

 

Animal Law Lessons on CALI

CALI (The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to advancing legal education through a variety of methods, including its well-known CALI Lessons, which are computer-based, interactive tutorials that cover specific topics of law. The CALI Lessons Library currently boasts more than 800 lessons–a treasure trove for law students!

A lesser-known fact about CALI Lessons is that there are several offerings on the subject of animal law. There is a three-part series on Dangerous Dog Laws and Procedural Due Process (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) authored by Lauren Gallagher and Ledy VanKavage of Best Friends Animal Society; and a lesson on Puppy Mills and the Animal Welfare Act by Cori Menkin and Lisa Weisberg of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Access to CALI Lessons is restricted to people affiliated with CALI member organizations and those who have purchased individual memberships. Students enrolled at the UCLA School of Law may request a student authorization code to set up an account by emailing lawlibrary@law.ucla.edu.

 

Vote Now for Our Next Rescuers’ Workshop!

 

Rescue 2.0: Best Practices in Shelter Animal Rescue

Several people have asked for copies of Vicki’s presentation slides for the June 18, 2011 Rescuers’ Workshop. Ask, and you shall receive! The slides are available via Slideshare. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at animallaw@law.ucla.edu. Thank you!

Rescue 2.0

View more presentations from UCLA Animal Law Program

 

Check Out Our New Feature!

People become interested in animal law for a number of different reasons. When they study the field as a whole, however, they often see a pattern in the law. Current laws that affect all types of animals—companion animals, farmed animals, animals in entertainment, research animals, and wildlife–fail to acknowledge, let alone address, the types and severity of suffering human animals inflict on nonhuman animals. This awareness leads to questioning about the role of law, the limits of legal reform, and how to make individual choices in the wake of all this information. It also leads to new understanding of violence and the role of law in supporting it.

At its core, animal protection is about non-violence. So how does one live a life of non-violence in a society that has not yet legally or culturally defined violence to include tremendous suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals for the benefit of human animals? Our new feature can assist interested readers in locating resources that help identify ways to make non-violence to animals a part of our daily lives. Vegans consciously identify and eliminate the habits of daily life that are founded on violence, including the consumption of animal-based foods. In our new feature Vegans in Your Corner we will identify some news articles, websites, and recipes that can be of assistance to busy people seeking change.

Access the new page couldn’t be any easier–simply click on the link in the top right corner of our site and you’ll be taken there!

 

Thank you!

Thank you again to all of the wonderful rescuers who attended the first event hosted by the UCLA Animal Law Program! Your passion for the animals was inspiring, as was your willingness to share ideas with everyone so we may all work together to help our furry friends. Thank you also for your feedback on our program and sharing your thoughts on future programs! Keep an eye out for the best practices wiki we discussed. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

 

Saving Animals’ Lives Through Shelter Rescue

Tomorrow is the big day! On Saturday, June 18, 2011 the UCLA Animal Law Program will host its first event, a day-long workshop for animal rescuers titled Saving Animals’ Lives Through Shelter Rescue. The workshop will focus on discussions of legal issues pertaining to shelter animal rescue, strategies for building a strong rescue, how to work closely with shelter managers/employees to achieve the best results for animals, and strategies to address the challenges that arise from increased use of social media in animal rescue.

We are thankful for the tremendous level of interest demonstrated for the event and to those rescuers who will be attending and helping us to make this workshop a success!

 

 

EPA Rule Banning Rat Poison in Danger

Have you ever noticed the poison traps next to buildings or in parking structures? Instead of practicing safe exclusion measures and conscientiously disposing of trash, people often allow rat and mice populations to grow and then justify their killing of these poor animals with methods that cause horrific suffering.

As bad as those rat traps are, current EPA rules allow for the indiscriminate use of non-containerized rodent poisons in areas where rats, mice, wildlife, children, and other companion animals can consume it quite readily. Loose bait rodenticides are cheaper to produce and use than containerized poisons, so it is not surprising that more deaths occur in lower-income areas. Moreover, rodenticides have become increasingly toxic, and they can be sold in unlimited amounts, greatly increasing the risks to all animals and the environment, which affects all animals, including rats and mice.

A couple of years ago, the EPA agreed to new rules that would limit the amount and toxicity of rat poisons sold to residential consumers, as well as prohibit the sale of loose bait rodenticides to residential consumers. The rules – supposed to go into effect early this month – would make it illegal to sell rat and mouse poisons to residential consumers unless the packaging is such that only a rat or mouse could get in, not a child or other animal. Other rules would limit the toxicity and amount of rodenticides that can be sold to retail consumers at one time. Taken together, implementation of the rules should result in less usage of rat poisons, which could be of some help to rats and mice as well as to other animals.

Two top rodenticide-producing companies (D-Con and Woodstream Corporation) are among four companies fighting against the ban, with protests to the EPA and stated intent to challenge the rules if implemented. If the ban is not implemented, it will be left up to each property owner to decide how to kill animals they believe are pests. If the rules are not implemented, residential consumers would continue to be able to buy large amounts of poison, and they would continue to be able to buy the most toxic compounds.

It is troubling that poisons are used at all. Certainly humans could do a better job of preventing the growth of animal populations they consider to be “pests” by non-lethal means. On the other hand, incremental bans and restrictions like these could be understood as positive attempts to limit the extent of harm we currently engage in and to begin to change the public’s thinking about entitlement to use poisons. If you would like to read more, the following links provide more information.

Additional Reading:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Takes Major Actions to Reduce Americans’ Risk from Mouse and Rat Poisons / Move Will Better Protect Children, Pets, and Wildlife (June 7, 2011).

Robert McClure & Environmental Health News, Rat Poisons Endanger 10,000 Children Every Year in U.S., Scientific American (Dec. 14, 2010).

Ryan Tracy, EPA to Ban Some Rat Poisons, Wall Street Journal (June 7, 2011).

Home Channel News, Bait Pellet Rodenticide to Remain on Shelves (Mar. 14, 2011).

 

California Legislative Round-Up, Part 1

The UCLA Animal Law Program will be hosting its first event next week, a workshop for animal rescuers titled Saving Animals’ Lives Through Shelter Rescue. To celebrate, we will focus our next posts to the UCLA Paw Review on proposed California legislation that affects companion animals.

The first bill on which we would like to focus is a bill introduced on February 2, 2011 by the California Assembly’s Committee on Agriculture: AB 222, which is simply titled “Food and Agriculture: Omnibus Bill.” The bill, as amended, would amend Sections 31108 (pertaining to the holding period for stray dogs) and 31752 (pertaining to the holding period for stray cats) of the Food & Agricultural Code to define the term “business day,” for purposes of California’s shelter laws, as any day that a public or private shelter is open to the public for at least 4 hours, excluding state holidays. Existing law requires that the holding period for a stray dog or a stray cat impounded in a shelter be six business days, not including the day of impoundment, with exceptions, as provided.

The impetus for amendment was an opinion issued by the California Court of Appeal in Veena Purigoy v. Glenn Howell [PDF], which held that “Saturday is not a ‘business day’ within the meaning of section 31108(a).” The bill appears to have been sponsored by the State Humane Association of California. The Assembly Analysis of the bill states that, “The State Humane Association of California has raised this as a clarifying change since most private, and many public, shelters are open on Saturdays to provide the public more opportunity to rescue and/or adopt animals. Many are not open every day of a typical business week, that is Monday to Friday, for that purpose. The Association states that this change will provide the shelters the clarification needed so they don’t need to add additional days to their holding period and to meet the court’s interpretation of current statute.”

What do you think, readers? Should the legislature define “business day” to mean something other the its usual and ordinary meaning? Defining Saturday as a “business day” effectively shortens the holding period for dogs and cats; do you think that is consistent with the legislative intent of the Hayden Act to lengthen the holding period for animals taken into California’s animal shelters in order to increase opportunities for adoption and redemption? If you disagree with this change of California shelter law, please contact your representatives. For guidance on how to do so, and how to get started with legislative advocacy, please see the UCLA School of Law LibGuide entitled California Legislative Advocacy.

 

News on Companion Animal Estates

Tony Lopez of KOVR Sacramento reports on companion animal estates.

This short video, featuring a report by Tony Lopez of news station KOVR Sacramento, discusses the plans of two families for their companions, if the humans in the family should pre-decease their companion animals. Estate planning for such possibilities is increasingly on the minds of people whose families include companion animals. There is considerable room for animal lawyers to get involved in this, but we hope for two things. First, we urge that any attorney working on estate planning also work to relieve the suffering of homeless animals in our animal shelters. These animals did not have affluent human caretakers or their affluent human caretakers did not anticipate the need because they thought their human family members would take care of their companion animals. It is important that shelter animals not be forgotten if one participates in this relatively new wave of securing brighter futures for animals whose humans thought to provide for them and had sufficient wherewithal to do so. Second, we recommend careful consideration and review of any potential caretaker or successor caretaker. Circumstances can change for the caretaker who takes over after the death of the first human companion to the animal. Not all organizations or individuals will approach caretaking responsibilities with the same degree of respect for the animal. Sometimes the thorniest issues are not legal.