Animal Rescue Group Sues County Over Dogs' Deaths

Posted 09/17/2006

CBS) LOS ANGELES An animal rescue group sued Monday the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, alleging employees violated state law by destroying two dogs at the Baldwin Park shelter on the same day they were given up by their owner.

A Dog's Life Rescue Inc. filed its suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. Its members are asking for a court order mandating that the department and director Marcia Mayeda follow the law in the future and keep animals given up to the agency by their owners alive for four days.

The law cited by the group went into effect in 1999 and is aimed at giving the animals time to be adopted or for their owners to redeem them before they are destroyed. The law applies to pets kept for companionship and not for economic reasons.

A department representative was not immediately available for comment.

According to the lawsuit, two healthy Labrador Retrievers named Mimsey and Buddy, both 7 years old, were given up by their owners in San Gabriel on March 21 and were destroyed at the Baldwin Park shelter that morning.

After an official of the Los Angeles-based animal rescue group wrote the Board of Supervisors about the deaths of the two animals, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky in April asked Mayeda to look into the incident and respond to the concerns of officials at A Dog's Life's, the lawsuit stated.

In June, Mayeda wrote a letter to the group saying that the department's "conduct is in conformance with the law," according to the lawsuit. 

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