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Sentencia T-034/13 |
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Sheldon Park Tenants v. ACHA |
The Allegheny Public Housing Authority decided to enforce it's "no pets" rule after years of unenforcement. This is a brief in arbitration. The tenants won. Includes a very interesting discussion of depression as a disability. |
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State v. Beckert |
This New Jersey case involved an appeal of a borough ordinance that limited ownership to three licensed dogs. The prosecutrix was found to have been keeping 39 dogs. The court found that she presented no evidence that she was operating a kennel, nor was the ordinance unreasonable in its restriction.
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State v. Maynard |
In this North Carolina case, defendant challenged her conviction for violating that city ordinance that limited the number of dogs greater than five months of age that can be kept on premises within the city limits to three. After conviction, defendant appealed the constitutionality of the ordinance, arguing that it was “arbitrary and without any justification” and “fails to stand upon a rational basis.” This Court disagreed. First noting that legislative enactments have a presumption of constitutionality, the Court held that the town of Nashville enacted the ordinance for the purpose of reducing noise and odor problems. These objectives are clearly legitimate public purposes, and the limitation on the number of dogs is directly related to those objectives.
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State v. Schuler (Unpublished) |
This Minnesota lawsuit arose from the enforcement of a Little Canada ordinance prohibiting the keeping of more than three adult dogs in any residential dwelling within the city's residentially zoned districts. In reviewing a challenge to the law, the court first noted that a city's police power allows it both to regulate the keeping of animals, and to define nuisances and provide for their abatement. Further, municipal ordinances are presumptively constitutional and the burden rests on the party challenging it. Here, Schuler failed to offer evidence that regulating the number of dogs per household was unrelated to controlling the problems of dog noise and odor as they affect the health and general welfare of the community.
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Vill. of Orion v. Hardi |
The plaintiff, the Village of Orion (Village), sued defendants, Patricia A. Hardi and Michael Larson, to enjoin them from keeping more than three cats in violation of a Village ordinance. After a dismissal and amended complaint by the Village, the trial court granted defendants' amended motion to dismiss, finding that the Village had previously voted to allow defendants to keep more than three cats. Here, the Village appeals this decision. By way of background, the defendants lived together in the Village since 1998, and one defendant served as the animal control officer for about 15 years. In 2013, the Village enacted an ordinance making it unlawful to keep more than three dogs or cats over the age of six months (except for licensed kennels or veterinarian clinics). At a Village board meeting in 2014, the minutes revealed that members of the board agreed to allow defendants to keep the dogs ad cats to live out their natural lifetimes. However, in 2017, the Board served a "notice to abate nuisance" for keeping more than three cats or dogs. This was followed by a complaint filed by the Village against defendants. In 2018, defendants filed a motion to dismiss alleging the three-cat limit was arbitrary and was "superseded" by a criminal action where one defendant pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, but was allowed to keep 10 cats. The trial court's order found that the Board's language at the 2014 meeting revealed "unambiguous" language that defendants could keep the cats in their possession. After remand, the Village filed its second amended complaint in 2022 and defendants against filed a motion to dismiss. After a hearing with testimony from Board members and others, the trial court found there was a motion to allow the keeping of the excess cats and this negated the ability of the Village to proceed with an ordinance violation. On appeal here, this court finds the 2014 board minutes are insufficient to support a motion to dismiss. The submission of the board minutes together with and a defense witness, followed by the Village's presentation of another board member's testimony to refute that, amounted to the court "improperly allow[ing] the parties to conduct a mini-trial on the veracity of the essential allegations of the complaint." The motion was used to attack the factual basis of the claim. Thus, the trial court's order granting the dismissal was reversed and the matter was remanded. |
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Village of Carpentersville v. Fiala |
In this Illinois case, the defendant, Joseph R. Fiala, appealed a violation of the Village Code of Carpentersville, which prohibited the ownership of more than two adult dogs at his single-family residence. In a hearing, one of defendant's neighbor's testified that the defendant was maintaining 15 large red dogs (Irish setters). The Illinois Appellate Court held that the village had statutory authority to enact any ordinance necessary for the promotion of health, safety and welfare of the community and that a municipality may also pass ordinances that "define, prevent, and abate nuisances." Further, the court also held that the village ordinance is not unconstitutional as violative of equal protection based on a classification between single-family residences and single-family units within multiple housing buildings, where such considerations of indoor and outdoor space, density, and proximity to others, noise levels, and structural differences, are rationally related to the object of the ordinance.
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When Fido is Family: How Landlord-Imposed Pet Bans Restrict Access to Housing |
Renters today face widespread landlord-imposed pet restrictions. At the same time, Americans increasingly view their pets as family members, and many do not see giving up their animals as an option when looking for housing. Consequently, pet-owning renters often struggle to find suitable places to live and end up compromising on quality, location, and safety. As homeownership drops and renting becomes more prevalent across the United States, landlord-imposed pet restrictions increasingly constrain choices, effectively reducing access to housing for many Americans. These policies particularly impact low-income families and those with socially-maligned dog breeds. This Note analyzes how landlord-imposed pet restrictions burden renters with dogs, with a particular focus on renters in the Los Angeles area. Parts II and III explain how legal and cultural attitudes toward pets are evolving, and how public and private restrictions constrain pet ownership. Part IV discusses the impact of landlord-imposed pet restrictions on renters and compares the situation to non-rental contexts in which people have sacrificed their own well-being to protect their pets. Part V asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and the penumbral right to privacy can be interpreted to protect pet-owning families from government-imposed pet restrictions. It argues that while these constitutional protections do not apply in the private rental context, they do suggest that landlords unreasonably infringe on renters' privacy interests and that legislators should act to constrain landlord control. |
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Zageris v. Whitehall |
The single-family residence property owner and owner of dogs kept on property filed suit for declaratory judgment, petition for habeas corpus, and civil rights claims against city based on city's enforcement of ordinance prohibiting number of dogs on property. He then appealed the ruling in favor for the city. The Ohio Court of Appeals held that the local ordinance limiting number of dogs on single family property was a nuisance and not zoning measure and consequently a valid exercise of city's police power.
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