Expert: Lee Meyer - 6/2/2008

Question
Hello,

At this point I am just starting on my options. Here is the story. Memorial weekend 08, We dropped our perfectly healthy english bulldog off at the vet for boarding on May 23rd. Magnum (our bullie) has been there many times. Monday evening, May 26th, we receive a phone call that our bullie is near death. We had gotten home a couple of hours earlier so we rushed to the vet. The story we were given was that Magnum was put outside for recreation, now, this is Texas, hot and humid, bulldogs do not get along with heat. 1. Magnum was put out in the heat unsupervised. 2. he suffered a heatstroke, when we got to the vet, they had a heating pad on him which can only mean they dropped his temperature to low and were trying to bring it back up. 3. Magnum was a very healthy 3 year old English bulldog and the vet acts as if they have no responsibility in this matter. Do we have a legal case to sue? We have sent a letter of demand, although our Magnum can never be replaced we have to get another dog because I am deaf and my husband travels, My only means of hearing is a Cochlear Implant and when I take that off in the evenings, I depend on Magnum to let me know if something is wrong, the phone is ringing or if someone is knocking on the door. The death of Magnum has been very hard emotional since me and him were very attached. The price of bulldogs is not cheap, we had to put aside to get him. The vet thinks I should just go get a replacement dog that is less expensive. Why should I have to do that? Shouldn't the vet be legally responsible to pay for the wrongful death of Magnum and also pay so that I can get a good quality English bulldog?

Answer
Hi,

first, sorry to hear about your beloved pet.  I know how I would feel if this happened to one of my guys and I got this response from the vet.

I am not a lawyer so my opinion is purely amateur.

The bottom line is that anyone can sue anyone for anything.  You can build a case for it and present it to a judge.  I don't know if it would fall into small claims or somewhere else.  It depends on what you are going for.  

My opinion is to be careful about preparing your arguments.  The reason is because you say you have been to this vet many times.  If you're going to say the vet provided terrible service, they will counter with the fact you kept going there anyway.  you have to show that you expected good service, you were a loyal customer and relied on their normally good care, and they failed to provide it and the result was a dead dog.  Your strongest case is built on negligence on their part.  They weren't watching your dog, it's Texas, it's damn hot outside, and because someone wasn't doing their job checking him, he went into heatstroke.  Further, when someone finally did find him and they started to cool him down, they messed that up because they had to put him on a heating pad.  If this care was being given by someone who normally does not do it, maybe they weren't legally allowed to do it, or were not yet certified to do it, or were very new and screwed up and there is negligence again.

You will need to know how long he was out there, when they finally checked on him, times when stuff was done because you want to show lots of time passed before anyone ever thought of looking in on him outdoors.

As he helps you out, you may want to point that out, especially if he received special training to assist you.  That may make him look more like a helper dog to the court.  Make mention of it as it will show you relied on him for help because of your medical condition.

I would also make note that the vet's attitude towards all of this was basically 'get a replacement'.  

Personally, if this was not a new vet, I don't know why you'd go to him.  This could be a problem in your case.  Primarily because if you knew him to be rather uncaring, you kept coming back anyway and what do you expect?  So you will have to be clear this is not the kind of thing you would have expected from this vet based on past service from him.  you were expecting the same regular good care you always had had, and they blew it big time.

I don't know what you can go for, generally you can get the cost of the animal that died.  If it's in small claims I don't think you get punitive damages, just property losses.  That and perhaps the vet bill charges they charged you for trying to save him, as they were all incurred because of their negligence.

Again, sorry for your loss.  If you're a Christian, find comfort in the fact your boy loved you and there will be a time when you get to see him again.

Lee