My neighbor is feeding a feral cat…What should I do? Attorney Ben Schwartz offers a few keen insights!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz.

Rebecca from Laurel, Delaware asks: “My neighbor has been feeding stray cats. We now have dozens of feral cats hanging around the neighborhood. They dig through the trash and come into our yard. If one of these cats bite someone, is the neighbor responsible for the personal injuries?”

I love cats. Are you creating a nuisance by bringing in tons of feral cats into a neighborhood where other people live? That does not sound like reasonable behavior to me. When you act unreasonably and cause injury to others, you become exposed to civil liability in a personal injury lawsuit. You can be sued for the damages and injuries that you cause.

There are a couple of very common types of diseases or sicknesses that come from cats. An animal bite may not be a very severe injury. You would probably not want to bring a lawsuit against another person for a cat bite. That’s going to take hundreds or thousands of dollars of financial investment and several years to wind its way through the court system. Several common diseases come from cats. For example, what if someone gets rabies from one of these feral cats? The individual who’s feeding the cats by bringing them into the neighborhood might be responsible for the medical bills that stem from the rabies infection. He might be responsible for the compensation of permanent injury. Cats also carry a disease called toxoplasmosis from a parasite. If the cats are feral, they don’t have a litter box. They are not kept in that guy’s house, and they’re just left to roam around the neighborhood. If you’ve got a garden, and the cats are using the garden as their bathroom, you or your family may be at risk for contracting toxoplasmosis.

I think that the individual who’s bringing in these droves of feral cats could be held responsible in a court of law for any injuries that happen as a result of his activities or actions.

  1. You can speak with the neighbor and say, “Look. This is a real problem in the neighborhood. You’re potentially exposing us to danger. We don’t want to live in a neighborhood full of feral cats. Can we think of some things to do together to alleviate the situation or to cure this problem?”
  2. You can also bring an Abatement of the Nuisance lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court. If you have a property owner or a neighbor who’s doing something to create a public nuisance, you can get a court order from the Court of Chancery to direct them to stop whatever they’re doing. That might be an avenue that you could pursue if you talk to the neighbor and he’s not willing to change his ways.

Thanks for watching!