BOSTON (CN) — The Massachusetts Supreme Court struggled Wednesday over whether a woman who rejected a veterinarian’s recommendation to euthanize her dog should go to jail for animal cruelty, with the judges suggesting that what she did was morally wrong — but finding it tricky to interpret it as legally wrong.
Although a few state courts have held that pet owners have a legal obligation to provide appropriate veterinary care, Massachusetts would become the first state to hold that owners have no choice but to put down a terminally ill animal who is suffering.
In this case, defendant MaryAnn Russo is facing a jail term of up to 7 years for insisting she wanted her 14-year-old dog Tipper to die at home with its family.
The case drew a number of amicus briefs from the state’s veterinary establishment in support of the prosecution, arguing that it would prevent animals from experiencing unnecessary suffering.
But a state criminal defense lawyers’ group argued that pet owners have a right to object to euthanasia on moral grounds, that owners might stop taking their animals to a vet out of fear that the vet will recommend killing them, and that prosecuting pet owners discriminates against poor people who can’t afford expensive end-of-life veterinary care.
Many pet owners skip vet visits because of the cost, among other reasons: A 2016 study found that while 57% of American households had a pet, fewer than 80% of dog owners brought their animals in for routine care at least once a year, and only 47% of cat owners did.
In this case, Russo took Tipper to an animal hospital on Christmas Day in 2020. The hospital recommended surgery for a large mass on the dog’s side, but Russo declined. Three weeks later, she returned. By that point Tipper was anemic, couldn’t stand or walk, had trouble breathing, was suffered from bed sores and had a necrotic mass and an open necrotic wound.
The veterinarian said surgery was no longer possible and recommended euthanasia because the dog’s condition was “super painful” and the pain couldn’t be controlled. But the family took Tipper home, and three weeks later an investigator went to the home and found the dog in terrible condition. The investigator obtained a warrant and had the dog put down.
The state animal cruelty statute makes it a crime for someone to willfully permit an animal to be subjected to unnecessary suffering.
A trial judge threw out the case and the state appeals court affirmed, finding that Russo didn’t “subject” the animal to pain. The pain was due to natural causes; she just didn’t alleviate it.
“What I’m stuck on is the word ‘willfully,’” Justice Frank Gaziano said. “Sometimes it means you intend the action, and sometimes it means you have to intend the harmful consequences.”
“With either definition we’d get to willfulness here,” said Tracey Cusick, an assistant district attorney.
“So the owner intended the suffering?”
“She intended her actions,” Cusick backtracked.
“So where’s the evidence that she intended the unnecessary suffering?” Gaziano asked.
Justice Elizabeth Dewar added, “It’s not just that the animal has pain. It’s ‘subjecting’ the animal. You could argue that the rest of the statute lists all these awful things that people do to animals, and then at the end it says you can’t ‘authorize or permit’ that. It could naturally be read as, you can’t do all these awful things and you can allow someone else to subject it to those things. If you read it that way, is there still probable cause?”
“I don’t accept your premise,” Cusick replied.
“But embrace the premise for a moment. There was an omission here. She didn’t do various things for this animal. Do you think there’s probable cause even under the reading I laid out on an omission theory?”
Justice Scott Kafker suggested that the owner could have “permitted” her family members to let the dog suffer. But “that might be a stretch,” Cusick acknowledged.
“If that’s a stretch, then we have a problem with Justice Dewar’s question,” Kafker replied, suggesting that the statute merely prohibited “delegating” active cruelty.
“I have the same issue as Justice Dewar,” added Justice Serge Georges. “Can you construe this language as by omission you can subject an animal?”
“Death is inevitable for all animals but suffering is not,” Cusick answered somewhat cryptically.
Justice Dalila Wendlandt noted that an earlier version of the statute was broader and the legislature tightened it up with the “subjected to” language.
Russo’s attorney Jason Bolio argued there was “no evidence of any suffering she intentionally subjected the dog to.”
But in the end the court was left with an ambiguous statute and no clear way to resolve the ambiguity.
“You win if she’s required to intend the suffering,” Kafker told Bolio. “But if that’s not what the statute requires, probable cause is certainly here.”
“I don’t know if she’s doing that ‘willfully,’” Kafker complained, seeming frustrated with the statute’s wording. “And ‘subjected to’ — I don’t know what that means.”
Courts in Florida, New York and Ohio have required pet owners to seek appropriate veterinary care, although those cases didn’t involve a refusal to euthanize a pet.
A little over a year ago, the Massachusetts court took up euthanasia in a different context — whether patients have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. While the court declined to become the first in the nation to recognize such a right in general, three of the six justices participating said they might be willing to recognize such a right in a case where a patient was terminally ill and in great pain.
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