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Giving animals their day in court

By: Katherine Michalets//March 18, 2015//

Giving animals their day in court

By: Katherine Michalets//March 18, 2015//

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Andrea Farrell – attorney, The Jeff Scott Olson Law Firm SC – Legal degree obtained from: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007

Andrea Farrell knows that the law and owners often put a different value on the lives of pets, making courtroom battles over animal rights’ particularly difficult.

Many times, she has found herself having to go to extra lengths to make sure animals and their owners get the respect she believes they deserve.

Farrell said she was in second grade when her eyes were first opened to the abuse some animals endure. She watched a video of a slaughterhouse and felt greatly unsettled.

The experience was in part what led her to become an advocate of animal rights. Since she took on that role, one of her largest sources of frustration has been the difference in what the law determines to be fair compensation for the death or injury of an animal and what the owner thinks is just.

Legally, a complainant can only be awarded fair market value, Farrell said.

“There is a disconnect in that our animals are often priceless,” she adding, adding that many pet owners think their animals as being like children.

One case that stands out in Farrell’s mind arose when she helped initiate an investigation into the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, more commonly known as PETA, and the Madison-based nonprofit group Alliance for Animals and the Environment.

Farrell said criminal codes prohibit animals from being killed by decompression, which often occurs when gases dissolved in a living creature’s bloodstream turn into bubbles following a too-quick ascent from an underwater dive. PETA and the Alliance for Animals and Environment contended that sheep were killed during UW experiments meant to shed light on why scuba divers get “the bends.”

A district attorney declined to prosecute the case, she said, so she turned to a not widely known part of the criminal code and went straight to a judge. The judge found probable reason to believe a crime had been committed and assigned a special prosecutor to the case.

In the end, the investigation did not lead to charges. But UW-Madison agreed to stop the experiments amid all the bad publicity, Farrell said.

In his nomination letter, Farrell’s colleague, Jeff Olson, said her opponents find themselves up against “an expert and tireless litigator.”

“She, and a few lawyers like her around the country, are changing the face of American law and extending its protections beyond the human family, to many of those harmless and powerless creatures who cannot protect themselves,” he said.

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