The video shows an extract of a judge Judy case. The sound is hard to hear. I have heard it several times and the scenario is as follows:
https://youtu.be/vhGSavj5UGU
The claimant was walking her dog on a lead in what she described as the front yard but I believe this to be a public area or an area used by people living in a condominium. She was walking next to some garages. Her dog, inquisitively, sniffed in the area of some bushes. In those bushes was a tabby cat which the claimant says belongs to the defendant.
The cat attacked the dog, scratching the dog’s eye which required $4000 of veterinary treatment at the end of which the dog lost her eye. The claimant/plaintiff was looking for a court judgement that she be reimbursed for four thousand dollars. She got her award – judge Judy awarded $4000 to the claimant to be paid by the defendant.
The defendant said that the cat was not his. Judge Judy found that the cat was his and that he should have had his cat on a lead or kept his cat indoors and because his cat had damaged this woman’s dog he had to pay her compensation due to his irresponsibility.
I find judge Judy’s judgement incorrect the following reasons:
Firstly, she makes an all-encompassing statement that this man’s cat should have been on a lead or very closely supervised. However, she made no reference to any state or local laws which requires that a cat be on a lead. The fact that she made no reference to any such law indicates to me that it does not exist in that area (or, as Sandy in a comment states, that it is accepted that outdoor cats are supervised). It has to be said, in the USA, today, there are many laws which are gradually encroaching upon the historically free-roaming nature of the domestic cat.
It must be an omission by the judge that she made no attempt to modify her judgement on the basis that there is no law (ordinance) regarding cats being on leashes or kept indoors, or she appears to make no reference to any leash-law should it exist, in her judgment. That’s the first problem as I see it. Incidentally, the judge seems to have taken the view that cats are like dogs and can put on a lead without any problems. Cats do not like leads and they won’t follow their “owner” like a dog.
The second problem is that the dog had approached the cat (as I understand it), albeit that both the dog owner and the dog were unaware of the cat’s presence as the cat was in bushes. However, the cat would have been intimidated and defensively aggressive. The cat’s behaviour was defensive and reactive.
Judge Judy likens the action of this cat to attacking prey, which is extraordinary. She discusses the behaviour of cats attacking birds with the defendant and then likens that to what the cat did to the dog. This is completely incorrect because cats do not willy-nilly attack dogs as prey. Therefore judge Judy was wrong again.
I would judge this incident as “an act of nature”. In effect it was an accident (from a human standpoint), the coming together of two species of animal, inadvertently, without any malice or bad behaviour on the part of either the claimant or the defendant.
Therefore, there should have been no award of compensation. It was just bad luck. If on the other hand judge Judy wished to award some compensation to the woman she should have taken into account the fact that the dog, albeit perhaps inadvertently, was the aggressor and therefore there was an element of contributory negligence or misbehaviour from the dog’s owner. This should reduce the award to about half of what it is.
There is one last issue: if this occurred in a private area there may be rules on cats entering private areas and losing their ‘rights’.
Those are my thoughts on this at this stage. Do you have any? It is a case which goes to the heart of the indoor/outdoor cat debate and whether free-roaming cats are acceptable nowadays.
Judge Judy is an American television show. She is a real judge but her judgements on the show are not binding in the usual way but via a contract between the parties.
This is an older article but these are timeless and worth discussion, as usual, especially as they showcase your fair and honest views. Thank you Michael, literally a thousand times thank you.
As I said in my comment, if either or any pet owner has the duty and expectation to control their pet it’s the dogs’. She let her dog stick it’s nose where she had a duty to her own dog not to for it’s own sake. To try to argue otherwise, and especially as you give no balance to your argument, I judge your comment in error and useless as a practical or legal matter. You’re just wrong.
Wow Melissa, if that’s who you are. Yeah, charming. I suspect you’re a notorious cat hater who lurks and pounces just like a cat at atories like this. I won’t say who you probably are as that would give you notoriety you’d enjoy, but your effusive vitriol is evident. You’re wrong in your assessment of this and just about every situation where you dump on cats, and that’s all I’ll say because I refuse to engage you, whoever you are.
Well you are still wrong. I genuinely am not a free-roaming supporter. I am for responsible cat caretaking for the simple and obvious reason it protects cats. Sometimes free-roaming is okay but a lot of the time it is not. I am for large cat enclosures. And my article does not empower the “cat whacks” whoever they are. You are letting your anger and hatred (for whatever it is) to get in the way of sensible argument.
My article is exclusively about Judge Judy’s decision and my conclusion is that it was an accident. If it was illegal to let cats go outside then my assessment would be different obviously. But it is legal to let go outside in that area.
I wrote the following article in Nov 2015:
https://pictures-of-cats.org/should-pet-owners-be-responsible-for-the-actions-of-their-cat.html
It tells you my thoughts about cat owners’ responsibilities.
I don’t think cat owners who let their cats go outside “get away with everything”. Your argument is too generalised and wild.
The ONLY valid point you had was about Judge Judy’s comparison of predation aggression to offensive aggression, however her argument still makes sense in the vain that cats have behaviors and instincts that might cause them to damage property or injure other pets and the idiots that free-roam their cats need to be prepared to accept that. They can let their cats roam but that doesn’t make their pets wildlife (that they destroy). That doesn’t give cat owners the right to do whatever the hell they want and get away with everything (if you really don’t support cat free-roaming how are you not enraged by this concept??)
Your argument amounted to “there is no law preventing my kids from playing outside unsupervised therefore I don’t need to pay damages if they scratch your car, it was just a ‘natural accident'”. I was just so floored by your silly argument I just simply can’t see how you are claiming you are not a cat free-roamer supporter, and if you aren’t I apologize for that, but your argument is awful and empowers the cat whacks.
Charming comment….You miss the point. I am not for or against free-roaming cats. In the article I was simply commenting on the judge’s legal argument. You have simply attacked me because you incorrectly believe that I support free-roaming cats. I don’t. I support responsible cat ownership. I always have done.
Read the article more carefully and before you attack people again think more and check more thoroughly.
Sorry. You are a very rude, disrespectful person. You are a coarse person. You are a crude person and I’ll be rude in return: you’re stupid.