Introduction
Today we look at a bill from Massachusetts, S1131, that provides concrete consequences to those who would kill someone else’s pet.
The Bill has 16 sponsors, 7 of whom are Republicans and 9 are Democrats; Bruce Tarr (R)*, Kimberly Ferguson (R), Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D), Colleen Garry (D), Bradford Hill (R), Vanna Howard (D), Bradley Jones (R), James Kelcourse (R), Joan Lovely (D), Joseph McKenna (R), Tram Nguyen (D), Patrick O’Connor (R), David Robertson (D), Daniel Ryan (D), Alan Silvia (D), Thomas Stanley (D),
The Bill is currently in committee and has been since 3/29/2021 (as of 6/1/2021)..
What This Bill Would Do
The bill text is very short, just one section with two parts. The first part states:
“(a) A person who by willful, wanton, reckless, or negligent act causes the unnecessary or unjustified death of a cat or dog shall be liable in damages for the fair monetary value of the deceased animal to the owner of the animal, including, but not limited to, damages for the loss of comfort, protection, companionship, other special damages, services of the deceased animal to its owner; reasonable afterlife expenses of the deceased animal; court costs and attorney’s fees; and other reasonable damages resulting from the willful, wanton, reckless, or negligent act. Non- economic damages shall have a cap value of $30,000.00”
One thing to note right off the bat is that this bill specifies that only cats and dogs are counted as pets by this bill, so pet rabbits for example would not fall under this law. This is a pretty large oversight and makes the bill pretty shaky already, does this mean less common pets are considered not worth protecting?
Another interesting point is that the damages do not have to be only economic; they can be, for example, emotional as well. Thus if someone’s pet is killed, they can still get financial charges against the offender even if the owner did not lose anything economically from the loss of the pet. This provision helps to protect the average family pet from murder, or at least punishes the pet murderer (up to $30,000).
Lastly, the act that results in the death of the pet does not need to be intentional, so the culprit won’t be able to get away by arguing that it was accidental. Also, it should be noted that the bill states that the death has to be unjustified or unnecessary to count. If the pet is attacking someone unprovoked, for example, then killing could be justified, depending on the situation. Thus not every death will fall under this bill.
The second part of the bill states;
“(b) Damages under this section for unnecessary or unjustified death sustained by an animal shall be recovered in an action of tort by the aggrieved, commenced within three years from the date, of death or from the date when the aggrieved knew, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence, should have known, of the factual basis for a claim of relief”
Essentially, this section simply lays out how the pet owner can go about getting the money from the killer, and that they have to do so within three years from the date of the death of the pet.
Conclusion and This Bill’s Major Flaw
This bill would provide a clear financial punishment to anyone who kills a cat or a dog, but only when the killing is unnecessary or unjustified. This bill is a great idea that helps promote the safety of peoples pets; after all, it will help deter people from doing it in the first place, and if they do commit the crime, then at least they will get their just deserts.
However, as mentioned previously, this bill has a huge flaw, one that basically ruins the entire bill: it only cares about dogs and cats. Tons of people have other pets such as ferrets, birds, reptiles, and so on, but this bill does not care about any of them. If someone with one of these pets falls victim to someone killing their pet, then they are out of luck as far as this bill is concerned. While some protections are certainly better than none, the fact that this bill only protects dog and cat owners makes it unmistakably a bad bill, in desperate need of modification. If this bill is changed to allow for all pets to be protected, then I think it would be a good bill. Until then this bill just isn’t what it should be.