Ex-boyfriend goes to Appeal Court in battle for shared custody of dog
Legal fight over access to $100 mutt bought from pound costs thousands
Cristin Schmitz
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
OTTAWA -- A Toronto-area man, whose bid for joint custody of his ex-girlfriend's dog was thrown out by an unimpressed judge, is going to the Ontario Court of Appeal to battle for the rights of pet owners to take their dog (or cat) fights to court.
"He loves the dog more than (his ex) -- the dog . . . was the thing that made him happiest in life," Oshawa lawyer Neil Holmes said in response to why Christopher Warnica of Ajax, Ont., has spent thousands of dollars in a failed effort to get visiting rights with a mutt that cost just $100 when purchased from the pound nine years ago.
Holmes said his client takes strong exception to Ontario Superior Court Justice Roger Timms' recent decision to throw Warnica's claim out of family court.
"This case must end here," Timms observed in ruling that Allison Gering of Midland, Ont., always was the sole owner of Tuxedo, a black and white lab/border collie mix.
"We have filed notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal," Holmes said. "In a nutshell, the judge dismissed the case because he doesn't think it's worth people spending a lot of money on pets (and because) we are diverting the court's resources from human beings to pets.
"We think he is wrong because, for some people who are childless, the pets are just as important as children, and loved just as much. And if a judge were to toss a child custody case out because he didn't think children were worth fighting over there would be an uproar."
Gering and Warnica dated for a decade before splitting up last year. Warnica contends they lived together, and that Gering bought the dog for him as a gift. Gering denies cohabiting. She says the dog was always hers.
After an earlier judge questioned whether the family court was even empowered to proceed with the case -- since the law deems pets to be property -- Warnica modified his original joint custody application. He now claims he and Gering share ownership of the dog, and each should have Tuxedo on alternate weeks.
Timms was not persuaded. Acknowledging that some people may view their pets as children, he pointedly noted "they are not children." He indicated Warnica was intending to devote too much money to further pursuing a case that had already eaten up considerable valuable court time.
"I do not believe that any court should be in the business of making custody orders for pets, disguised or otherwise," Timms wrote, noting that he disagrees with judges who feel otherwise.