Reading That Boring Stack of Paper May Save Your Pet’s Life

The show South Park once had an episode where a character didn’t read a contract before signing it. This turned out to be a huge mistake, as the contract had a provision allowing the company to turn the character into a human centipede.

Although such a contract would certainly be void in real life, partly because the character is a minor and partly because the character didn’t understand what he was agreeing to, today’s story illustrates that signing paperwork without reading the agreement first can still have dire consequences.

The picture on the side is of Lady, a cat which belonged to Colleen Conlon of Massachusetts until a few days ago. Lady was a gift to Mrs. Conlon from her daughter, who died in a car accident last year. Conlon’s son, Jesse Conlon, took Lady to Broadway Animal Hospital for a flea bath. Jesse signed the paperwork and gave the contract, and Lady, to Muhammad Malik, the veterinary. Sometime later though, Dr. Malik came back out and asked Jesse if he wanted Lady’s body. It turns out that the contract Jesse had signed wasn’t for a flea bath, but for euthanization.

There are many factors in this, but the most central ones are the negligence of Dr. Malik in handing Jesse Conlon a form for euthanization rather than for a flea bath and Jesse Conlon’s own contributory negligence in failing to read what he was signing. It would be up to a jury to determine which factor actually caused the death of the cat. Although most people will agree that it is malpractice for a veterinary to hand an owner an incorrect form and then fail to confirm that the owner wishes for their pet to be killed before performing the euthanization, it is debatable whether Jesse’s own negligence would lessen, if not completely shield, Dr. Malik from liability. After all, Jesse, by signing that contract, had given his consent to Dr. Malik to kill Lady. It has been held in tort law that a plaintiff’s consent would shield a defendant from lawsuits, even in cases where the plaintiff agrees to be physically harmed. A plaintiff cannot consent to death of course, but given that cats are viewed as property by the law, that exception to the rule doesn’t work in the Conlons’ case.

Contract law, however, assumes that there is mutual assent; both parties must have a shared understanding as to what it is agreeing to. Malik’s attorney may argue that, depending on the exact terms of the contract, Jesse’s signature constitutes his understanding of the agreement. It was, however, the veterinary’s negligence which placed Lady in a position to be euthanized in the first place.  It was Dr. Malik’s duty to ensure that animals brought to him have been properly treated and Dr. Malik failed in that duty when he handed Jesse the wrong paperwork. In other words, if Dr. Malik had performed his profession correctly, Jesse never would have consented to the killing of his mother’s cat. The euthanization was a consequence of Dr. Malik’s inability to discharge a duty that a reasonable veterinary in his situation would have discharged successfully.

This case, sadly, is not atypical for veterinary malpractice. The fact this story has gathered media attention might be enough to create some policy changes. Libertarians and conservatives would push for less regulation; if there hadn’t been paper work for something as simple as a flea bath, then the veterinary wouldn’t have mixed the forms up with a serious procedure like euthanization. Liberals, with perhaps the more obvious solution, would advocate putting an end to euthanization entirely. It would be extremely ironic if Dr. Malik was suspended of his license to practice animal medicine for cruelty to animals given that euthanization of animals is legal in Massachusetts.

Neither change will ease Colleen Conlon’s loss, just as no amount of money will change the fact that Conlon’s last gift from her departed daughter is also gone.  But either policy change would be a step in the right direction for a society which claims to care about life and liberty, yet restricts both in an effort to keep itself safe.