New California divorce law: Treat pets like people — not property to be divided up
A new law being unleashed in California on New Year's Day will give pets' rights some bite in court cases. The measure provides judges with the power to consider what's in the best interests of the animal in divorce cases, instead of treating them the way they've been treated by courts in the past — as physical property.
[...] The law "makes clear that courts must view pet ownership differently than the ownership of a car, for example. By providing clearer direction, courts will award custody on what is best for the animal," [state Assembly member Bill] Quirk said after the bill was signed.
[...] Legal experts said the law means judges can take into consideration factors like who walks, feeds and plays with the pet when deciding who the animal should live with.
"Before it was an issue of who owns the dog and how you distribute the property," Favre said. "But pets aren't quite the same thing as china and sofas. They're more like children, in that they're living beings who have their own preferences." And as with children, he said, divorce can be "a trauma for animals as well."
Fur baby.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @02:26PM
This is hardly new. A wise older friend once noted that "overly doting" pet ownership by a young couple often meant that children were coming in a few years. This latest generation of humans seems to have forgotten the second part of the sequence.