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CLEARWATER, FLA---Are dogs personal property such as a television, car or refrigerator?
A judge in Pinellas County, Florida has ruled they are in a custody dispute involving two dogs which were rescued from Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina.
Pam Bondi of Tampa, an assistant state attorney for Hillsborough County, and Rhonda Rineker of Dunedin, adopted two dogs from the Pinellas Humane Society which had been rescued following the hurricane.
Bondi adopted a St. Bernard and Rineker took home a shepherd-mix but the dogs' owners, Steven and Dorreen Couture of Louisiana are suing to regain custody and ownership of their pets.
Prosecutor Bondi is being represented by high profile attorney Barry Cohen while Jeffrey Brown is representing Rineker.
In a ruling Friday, Sixth Circuit Court judge Henry J. Andringa ruled on a motion brought by Murray Silverstein, the St. Petersburg attorney representing the Coutures, that the dogs are considered personal property and not "as a living and breathing creature capable of feeling pain, pleasure and emotion" as Rineker's attorney had argued.
Thus, the court decision will be based on ownership rather than who is capable of providing the best home for the animals.
Silverstein had argued that to rule that the dogs weren't personal property would set the law back 100 years.
Common law generally holds that a finder of lost property has rights superior to anyone else in the property except the true owner. Dogs and other companion animals are considered the personal property of the owners and if a rightful owner finds his or her dog, he or she can then assert ownership.
http://www.animallaw.info/articles/ovuslostdog.htm
The American Dogs Owners Association Inc. of Castleton, NY, has also supported this position and has argued in court that limiting the number of dogs a person can own is unconstitutional because dogs are personal property for which the owners are responsible.
http://www.adoa.org/
Judge Kathleen Hessinger, the first judge assigned to the case, recused herself after Rineker's attorney asked for her disqualification after Hessinger said she knew and had gone to law school with Bondi.
Hessinger had originally offered unsolicited to remove herself if either party so requested but then refused when Brown filed a formal motion moving for her disqualification. She acquiesced several weeks later with her recusal on July 27.
Silverstein is arguing that now the court will decide if the Coutures did own the dogs before Katrina, that they didn't abandon them and if they placed the dogs in a temporary home after they lost their home.
Brown was maintaining that the court should consider who can provide the best home and what's in the best interest of the dogs.
A mediation conference has been scheduled for October and no settlement is reached, the dispute will be heard at trial in November. 9-23-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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