Love Me, Love My Monkey
MayorBob.
Posted to Legal on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 06:48:41 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
Debbie Rose suffers from social anxiety disorder. Her condition is such that Rose has a service animal. Rose's problem is convincing the places she goes to accept her service animal, a 10-year-old bonnet macaque.
Rose is bringing suit against Wal-Mart, the local health department and Cox Health Systems, alleging that her rights under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) have been violated. Rose claims her social anxiety disorder is so disabling that if she isn't allowed to be accompanied by Richard, her macaque, she can't possibly go out in public. According to Rose, Richard should be viewed as being no different than a seeing eye dog. To which the local health department responds "no way." According to Director of Health Kevin Gipson, because Richard doesn't perform a physical function for Rose, the animal doesn't qualify as a service animal. A quick read of the ADA's definition of service animal would seem to vindicate Gipson:"Service animals are animals that are individually trained to perform tasks for people with disabilities such as guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling wheelchairs, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, or performing other special tasks. Service animals are working animals, not pets."
But Rose claims the health department is being too nit picky in sticking to their definition of service animal. She claims she should be allowed to have Richard accompany her to the Wal-Mart, local restaurants, and to her nursing classes at Cox Health. She claims the health department effectively put the kabosh on that by sending out a letter to businesses and restaurants warning them about Rose and her monkey. She claims when she registered for the nursing classes she had Richard with her "and at no time was she told that she would be denied access if she was accompanied by her service animal." She also alleges she has been denied access to Cox Health facilities to visit sick relatives and even receive medical treatment herself. Cox responded by claiming the monkey represents "significant health risks." A perusal of commentary on the story in the local press reveal a good majority of the people agreeing with the health department. There were also those who lambasted the Wal-Mart for actively discouraging service animals in their store.
The case will likely rest on what a trial jury determines a service animal to be. Obviously, a seeing eye dog is a service animal as it performs a physical function the blind person can't perform. So too can trained monkeys be service animals if they are performing that essential physical act. But, if the person is impaired with a social anxiety disorder so crippling they need the presence of an animal to make them comfortable enough in their surroundings, shouldn't that animal qualify as a service animal? Some believe they should. As luck would have it, I reported on a similar case on Plastic four years ago. In that case, an apartment with a "no pets" policy tried to evict a tenant who had an animal she claimed was a service animal helping her cope with social anxiety disorder. She won her case. Also the US Department of Justice is modifying the language of the ADA to broaden the definition of service animal to take into account emotional support animals like Richard.
Courts to ICE: Negative ghostrider, the docket is full. >
