Animal cruelty laws should not serve mere aesthetic ends. The purpose of allowing animals to sue is to give voice to the understanding that 'sentient beings' are the actual victims of animal cruelty.
SHERRY F. COLB: ‘The story of Justice v. Gwendolyn Vercher began with a woman named Vercher neglecting her horse, named Shadow at the time. In Vercher’s care, Shadow starved and froze, was colonized by lice and harmful bacteria, experienced prolapsed genitals, and shrunk to 300 pounds underweight. Vercher subsequently pleaded guilty to criminal animal neglect under Oregon law. After the criminal plea, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) took an unusual step. It brought a civil suit on behalf of the quarter horse, now named Justice, against his convicted former owner, seeking damages for negligence per se, seeking money that would enable someone who adopted Justice to pay the ongoing and enormous veterinary bills that resulted from Vercher’s conduct…
Opponents of Justice’s capacity as a plaintiff make several arguments… Some say, Justice is not a person, and only persons can bring lawsuits… they ask rhetorically, if an animal can bring a lawsuit, then what is to stop all of the animals on farms, in aquariums, in zoos, and in laboratories from bringing suits against their owners as well? To paraphrase one opponent, if animals are persons, then we can’t eat them… Some point to the fact that animals do not need to be plaintiffs in lawsuits to receive protection from cruelty or to be able to collect for their veterinary care. To pursue plaintiff status for animals is thus to press a radical and unnecessary animal-rights agenda…
In response to the first personhood objection, it is not clear that animals are the wrong sorts of creatures to bring lawsuits. In the anti-cruelty statute under which ALDF is suing on Justice’s behalf, animals can be victims of abuse and are the intended beneficiaries of the law prohibiting abuse. One could imagine an animal-cruelty law that existed to further only human interests and helped animals as a mere side effect… But the animal cruelty law in Oregon, however, regards animals as relevant victims of cruelty crimes. The purpose of the law, in other words, is not just to protect people’s property interest in their animals… To say Justice is the victim is logically to suggest that he is the one to whom the perpetrator owes damages for the abuse. And allowing him to sue is simply another way of stating that the law recognizes him as a living being to whose protection the law extends…
The second “personhood” contention, that rights imply responsibilities, is simply untrue. Babies and children can be victims in our society, qualifying for legislative protection and even constitutional rights. Yet babies are even more incapable than horses of fulfilling responsibilities to anyone. And the same is true for the intellectually disabled and incompetent among us. For each of these individuals, as for Justice, adult humans must represent them if someone is to argue for the protection of their rights… Horses possess whatever capacities entitle infants to rights… Next we have the slippery slope argument. If Justice can sue, what is to stop the cows and other animals undergoing cruelty and slaughter on farms across the nation from suing?… If it turns out that other animals, those whose status may be more precarious than Justice’s, are also entitled to sue, then we ought to recognize that entitlement when the time comes…
This grievance seems to largely miss the point of those arguing for animals’ ability to sue under the statute. The purpose is to give voice to the understanding that sentient beings such as Justice are the actual victims of animal cruelty. The idea is that animal cruelty laws do not serve mere aesthetic ends, like signs telling people not to walk on the grass around a public building. In Oregon animal cruelty is like any other abuse, something that implicitly recognizes the entitlement of a sentient living creature to freedom from torture. Granting standing to bring a lawsuit cogently highlights that entitlement. Justice lost his case in the district court and is currently awaiting appeal. It is difficult to be optimistic when those in charge of deciding cases remain as invested in cruelty toward and exploitation of animals as most people are in our society. Yet efforts to do what is right and what the law reasonably supports, notwithstanding the resistance they encounter, is what genuine advocacy with integrity looks like. It is the pursuit of justice that Justice deserves’. SOURCE…
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