Lawsuit Filed Los Angeles
Mandatory Spay/Neuter Ordinance
Issues Pertain To Every State And Municipality
by JOHN YATES
The American Sporting Dog Alliance
http://www.americansportingdogalliance.org
LOS ANGELES, CA – Concerned Dog Owners of California filed a lawsuit
this week against the City of Los Angeles, seeking to overturn a new
ordinance mandating the spaying and neutering of all dogs.
The lawsuit is primarily based on constitutional grounds, and alleges
that the ordinance violates the civil rights of dog owners in several
ways.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance believes that the importance of
this lawsuit extends far beyond the City of Los Angeles. It marks the
first of several anticipated legal challenges to onerous laws and
ordinances as dog owners turn to the courts to fight for their rights
on constitutional grounds. This lawsuit is based on legal issues that
exist in every state.
An estimated 1.85 million Los Angeles residents have at least one dog or cat.
The ordinance mandates the sterilization of all pets at four months of
age. An exemption can be obtained by purchasing a breeder's permit,
for a dog registered with an approved national registry and is being
shown or used in competition, and for other categories such as
seeing-eye dogs and police dogs. Fines and penalties are provided for
violations.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance (ASDA) strongly supports Concerned
Dog Owners of California in this lawsuit. Mandatory sterilization laws
and ordinances violate the basic rights of dog owners in many ways,
and ASDA considers them a major part of the hidden animal rights
agenda to eliminate the private ownership of animals. We urge our
members and all dog owners to offer their full support to Concerned
Dog Owners of California, and also to financially assist this group to
pay for the cost of the lawsuit. They can be reached online at
http://www.cdoca.org/.
Here is a summary of the legal issues in the lawsuit:
It violates the rights and familial relationships of 650,000
pet-owning households.
The options provided in the ordinance to avoid pet sterilization are
not constitutionally valid. It infringes on basic rights of freedom of
association, freedom of speech, the guarantee of due process and
freedom of religion.
It won't work. The evidence is clear in communities that have passed
similar ordinances. Similar ordinances have been proven to increase
the number of dogs euthanized, increase shelter admissions, increase
the costs of dog control programs and increase noncompliance with
licensing requirements.
It will increase the number of puppies born, because people will
choose to get a breeding permit and to breed their dog simply to avoid
mandates to spay and neuter.
It exposes pets to unjustified risks to their health. Current research
shows that many significant and sometimes fatal health problems are
associated with sterilization, especially at a young age.
Pet owners are threatened with immediate and irrevocable injury when
the ordinance takes effect October 1.
Existing laws are not being enforced. An estimated 75% of the pets in
the city are not even licensed. Other proven means of reducing shelter
admissions and euthanasia rates have not been tried.
Much of the ordinance, including the basis for exemptions, is
arbitrary and capricious, ambiguous and discriminatory.
The lawsuit states its case succinctly: "Owners who wish to keep their
healthy pets unaltered have no constitutionally valid options to the
MSP (mandatory spay and neuter) ordinance. Although the ordinance
provides for six alleged 'exemptions,' and a breeder's permit, these
exemptions and the breeder's permit are, in actuality, nothing more
than arbitrary and capricious compelled associations that violate an
owner's fundamental free speech rights."
The ordinance forces a dog owner to join an organization approved by
the city, and to identify her/himself as a breeder, which is
state-compelled speech, the document says. By requiring the city to
approve of a dog owner's membership in an organization, such as a dog
registry or club, government is both compelling membership and
dictating a list of acceptable organizations that a person is forced
to join. The ordinance then mandates that a dog must compete in an
event sanctioned by one of those approved organizations, or is in the
process of being trained to compete.
To obtain a breeder's exemption, a dog owner also is compelled to join
one of those approved organizations and identify him/herself as a
participant of that organization, which is an infringement of free
speech, the documents show. The right of free speech is infringed by
forcing a dog owner to identify her/himself as a breeder on government
documents that are available to public inspection.
In essence, a person is forced to say, "I am a breeder," even if the
person does not consider her/himself to be a breeder, or if he/she is
personally opposed to breeding.
Documents were attached to the court filing to show examples of
harassment and vilification of breeders that were distributed by the
groups that support the ordinance. In essence, identifying oneself as
a "breeder" exposes the person to danger, harassment and defamation of
character as consequences of government-compelled speech.
Several religious groups prohibit their members from sterilizing an
animal. These groups include Orthodox Judaism and the Jehovah's
Witness faith. Members of these faiths are unable to sterilize their
pets without violating their religious beliefs, which puts the city in
the position of violating their constitutionally protected freedom of
religion. Los Angeles has the second largest community of Orthodox
Jews in the nation.
The ordinance also gives the city the power to forcibly seize and
confiscate pets that are not spayed or neutered, if their owners are
not granted one of the arbitrary allowed exemptions. This violates the
pet's owner constitutionally guaranteed rights of due process under
the law, that also are violated because the ordinance does not provide
recourse through a hearing.
Forcing a dog owner to spay or neuter also represents an
unconstitutional "taking" of property rights, as the ordinance compels
taking away the value of a dog's reproductive capacity, and due
process is denied.
To compel pet sterilization also is to deny an owner the freedom to
act according to her/his own religious beliefs, personal ideology or
political viewpoint, all of which are protected under the U.S. and
California Constitutions.
The lawsuit also contends that the City of Los Angeles has failed to
take far less draconian actions that have been proven to reduce the
number of animals entering shelters, such as enforcing licensing
requirements (a reported 75% of the dogs in Los Angeles are not
licensed), offering low-cost licensing for puppies that would allow
their owners to be educated about the issues, or mandating permanent
identification of pets so that animals taken to the shelter could be
returned to their owners.
Because of the reported dangers of spaying and neutering (especially
at an early age) shown in numerous research findings, the city also is
denying dog owners the right to protect their pet's health and
infringing on the relationship between a pet owner and his/her
veterinarian.
The ordinance also infringes upon the basic concepts of the liberty
and happiness of a pet owner, and also of the relationships between an
owner, her or his family, and the pets that are part of their family.
Although most pet owners consider their dogs as family, rather than
property, they are legally defined as personal property and protected
as such under the fundamental right of property in the California
Constitution. The ordinance is an arbitrary and capricious "taking" of
those property rights by government, especially since the evidence
from other communities shows that the ordinance will be
counterproductive to its stated goals.
The lawsuit also alleges that the ordinance contains much vague and
ambiguous language, such as undefined concepts like "adequately
trained" and "poor health," or not stating clearly what registries
have been approved, and which have not.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the ordinance
unconstitutional, and to order the city not to enforce it.
Please feel free to use any information contained in this report, and
also to cross-post it and forward it to your friends.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance is the unified voice of sporting
dog owners and professionals in America. We work at the grassroots
level to defeat unfair legislation and policies that are harmful to
dogs and the people who own and work with them. Our work to protect
your rights is supported solely by the donations of our members. Your
participation and membership are vital to our success. Please visit us
on the web at http://www.americansportingdogalliance.org._
