Dog Owner Case Ruled Unfit for Federal Court

A dog owner was barking up the wrong legal tree when she filed a civil-rights suit against officials for seizing her wayward pooch, a very dismissive 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

"If ever the resolution of a dispute belonged at the local level of government, it is this dispute over what to do about the plaintiff’s inability or, more likely, unwillingness to control her intimidating Doberman," the opinion said.

Judge Richard A. Posner, in his most withering mood, ordered the Doberman's owner, Sherry Wall of Brookfield, Wisc., to show cause "why she should not be sanctioned for making a frivolous argument in a meritless case."

Wall filed suit for due-process violations after her dog, which she had a history of letting run wild, was impounded and detained for 60 days. "This is nuisance litigation that the federal judiciary does not need," Posner fumed.

4/28/05