If a drunk driver or anyone else killed your pet, would you expect justice? Right now there is none. The most any court will award in damages is a few hundred dollars, or the pet’s replacement cost. Almost all animal owners consider their pets as far more than mere property: they are family or valued friends. However, laws concerning companion animals throughout the country treat them as disposable, easily replaceable and almost valueless. A multitude of animal abuses originate from this outdated perception, whether in pet adoption and custody disputes, mistreatment by groomers, boarders, doggy daycare facilities and others, dangerous dog proceedings and the routine practice of city shelters killing dogs with absolutely no due process – or even proper notice to owners.
Even as society’s sensitivity to animals has grown, animal laws remain mired in the 19th century. As a result, animals and their owners are denied basic rights and protections, leading to the annual deaths of millions of companion animals and their continued abuse, many at the hands of a callous government.
Into this void and over the past several years, the founders of The Center for Animal Litigation have brought precedent setting lawsuits in multiple states by applying established principles of property, trust, criminal and constitutional jurisprudence to woefully archaic and constitutionally infirm animal laws. They’ve saved countless lives, and incrementally advanced animal rights with strategies to provide companion animals with their own unique status within and beyond the well-settled doctrines of property law.
The Center For Animal Litigation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing resources, litigation strategy management and educational assistance to expand the quantity and quality of attorneys taking on animal rights matters throughout the country – often when animals’ lives are at stake and where opportunities arise to achieve impactful change in the law. The Center also seeks to provide funding for the expenses of hiring in-house lawyers to work exclusively on animal rights cases as well as supporting the attorneys from our Network when they assist in these matters.
The Center is a pioneering civil rights organization, and its mission brings challenges that do not fit the traditional lawyer/client funding models. This requires funding from a myriad of sources, all of whom understand this vital need to expand the fundamental rights of these animals and their owners.
