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Service animals are more than just pets. They are specially trained and help people with issues ranging from alerting and protecting those prone to seizures and calming down someone with PTSD to making sure their handlers take their medicine on time. In short, they are on the clock. At least, they’re supposed to be. If it looks like a service animal and barks like a service animal, it is kind of hard to verify if they actually are. From Valley Central:
Texas is tightening its leash on people trying to pass their pets off as service animals.
A new law raised the penalty to $1,000 and 30 hours of community service for a disability-related charity. A Harlingen attorney said there were problems with the new law that would make it difficult to enforce.
Ricardo Barrera, owner of the Barrera Law Firm, said, “What law enforcement may run into, and prosecutors who are trying to deal with this, is potential Fourth Amendment infringements. As well as ADA infringements.
It really isn’t as easy as just looking to see if the alleged support animal is wearing the proper outfit. There are good faith and bad faith issues at play here. While the ADA specifically does not classify emotional support animals as service animals, some federal laws make interventions that muddy the waters. On the other hand, there are people who are just saying screw you to no-dog rules and fraudulently bringing their pets into places they know they shouldn’t be. There’s even a market for fake vests and licenses:
And the problem of sorting people with genuine support animals from people who just want to take their dog Fluffy into a Cracker Barrel makes it harder for the people who need support animals to move freely:
In the meantime, the options left to officers attempting to enforce the law are sparse:
Barrera suggested law enforcement should focus on understanding the ADA and medical privacy laws. He said law enforcement could legally only ask someone two questions when it came to their service animal. “They can only ask you whether or not your service animal is a service animal, and what work or your task the service animal is trained to perform,” Barrera said.
Barring some special tell or search that risks violating the Fourth Amendment, it looks to be a scout’s honor system. And if you’re at the point where you’re dressing up your Pomeranian in a service vest to commit to the bit, you probably aren’t above lying to avoid a $1,000 ticket and community service.
I don’t know if they do, but they should.
Fake Service Animal Law Hard To Enforce, Lawyer Says [Valley Central]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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