Louisville Animal Ordinance: Court Decision

Before you leap over and look at it, let me tell you a few things that will help you (especially if you’re not proficient at reading legal jargon).  First, this opinion is one for the textbooks.  Not because it’s difficult, but because it’s classic. 

It’s a decision that is at once complex and subtle, like a fine wine.  If  you swill it down in one gulp, you’ll miss not only its masterful crafting, but the delight of its rich overtones, which are only enjoyed when you take the time to savor it.  And this is precisely where all the wrangling over “Who won?” comes from.

Our modern lives are lived at a break-neck pace.  We like our information fast, quick and distilled down to Tweets.  That ain’t the case here.  Skim it, and you run the real danger of leaping to a conclusion that will make you look like a monkey’s uncle. 

Before you jump to any conclusion, read it at least three times.  It reminds me of those Russian dolls where you open one and there’s another, and another and another after that. 

After you read it, we’ll have a little chat about what it does and doesn’t mean, and who, actually, is the real winner.

Passage of that ordinance in 2006 had started a firestorm of controversy that first engulfed the city, then swept rapidly across the nation.   

Local Veterinarians, sportsmen, representatives of the disabeled, boarding kennels and animal clubs all opposed the major revisions granted under that law which, they claimed, gave the city shelter broad ability to seize pets, no recourse for appeal to their owners, and opened the door to dangerous civil liberty abuses.

For their part, Louisville was releived to have found the ideal solution to their most recent public relations nightmare: the horrific death of Hulon Barbour who was attacked by dogs in an alley one night in 2005.  Unable to explain their shelter director’s failure to enforce the current ordinance to citizens who had complained for weeks about the same loose, aggressive dogs that killed Barbour, Metro instead claimed their old law was inadequate and the city needed the protection of a new, “dangerous dog” law.  

Quick to capitalize on the community’s fears, the HSUS helped draft the new law and labeled anyone who objected to it as ‘greedy’ or ‘self-interested’ and kept up a barrage of invective to discredit them.  Animal Extremists embraced it as a “model ordinance” and hurried to sponsor similar legislation at every level of government, in every state in the nation. 

The actual trial had taken place nearly a year before, and each side was hoping for a ruling that would give them a decisive win.  Then, on the first Friday in October, 2009 they learned that Judge Simpson had finally issued his ruling.  

Rather than resolving the debate, however, an entirely new one has sprung up:   Who actually won?

A WIN-WIN-WIN SITUATION

The morning after the decision, the local Courier-Journal newspaper led their Metro section with the headline: Judge upholds most of Louisville’s dangerous-dog law and reported:

Bill Patteson, a spokesman for the Jefferson County attorney’s office, said his office is pleased because the judge upheld “about 95 percent” of the ordinance,” and that “the constitutionality of the ordinance was affirmed,”  and so Metro claimed they’d won.

On the HSUS website, Animals & Politics, their blog stated:

“The court upheld as constitutional nearly every component of Louisville’s comprehensive animal care and control ordinance,” and that the “plaintiffs filed a broad and haphazard lawsuit” which the “federal district court resoundingly rejected”. 

 Last to weigh in, the American Kennel Club (AKC) issued its own press statement under the banner: Victory for Louisville Kennel Club in Suit Against City! and went on to detail how the plaintiff’s had prevailed.

Just to make things even more complicated, one of the parties is demanding that Metro file an appeal of the very decision they currently claim to have won!

WINNING THE BATTLE, LOSING THE WAR

While not a party to the lawsuit, the HSUS did try to flex its legal muscle and file an Amicus (friend-of-the-Court) brief supporting Metro early on in the lawsuit.  Judge Simpson, however, refused to hear it, claiming they had no legal interest in the case. 

So, while HSUS is publicly claiming a resounding victory for their legislative agendas, there are rumors of them leaning  heavily on Metro to appeal this big win.  Apparently, they don’t they know you’re only supposed to demand do-overs when you lose.

 What, a reasonable person might ask, do they care anyway?  And, why should the taxpayers of Metro Louisville shell out big bucks to appeal a federal decision just to please the HSUS when their own city isn’t protesting the ruling?

And it is precisely at this point that we all slide down the rabbit hole into the AniMal RighTs WoNdeRlanD…

 (To be continued!)