There’s an unspoken implication of a decision valuing a housepet at $45,000. If one is driving a vehicle of average value in Washington state, and sees a pet dart out in front of the car, the state would apparently prefer that you total your car to avoid hitting the animal. Just make sure that the tree or wall or parked car you hit instead doesn’t also have non-economic sentimental value.
And why isn’t it contributory negligence to leave a housecat outside? The press coverage doesn’t say if this was raised in the litigation.
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A man’s home is his judicial hellhole
I was thinking of the contributory negligence angle when I first saw this story, and I think maybe it’s not a problem here – the cat died on the owner’s property,