When a pet is sick and under the care of veterinarians, the minimum the owner should expect from them is honesty about the animal’s condition. A woman whose service animal, a cat named Dennis, died after her vets repeatedly told her that he was “doing great,” sued the pet’s vets for several wrongdoings. Many of her claims, however, were barred by the one-year statute of limitations on veterinary malpractice. Her suit was initially dismissed by the trial judge. But it turns out her claims for deceit were not time-barred. The pet owner will now be able to take the vets and their hospital to court for what they did to Dennis.

When Dennis became unable to urinate, plaintiff Monireh Anvary took him to the Access Specialty Animal Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, where he was treated by two veterinarians, defendants Joyce Lee and Heather Madden. Anvary warned the vets to avoid using flea medicine on Dennis because he had suffered a seizure when it was previously administered to him. The vets assured her that their flea medicine was safe.

Anvary then left Dennis in the hospital. Sadly, the vets and their staff failed to heed Anvary’s instructions about flea medicine which they gave to Dennis, causing very serious adverse reactions including seizures and vomiting. But these consequences were not disclosed to Anvary. Whenever she called to check on Dennis, she was told that he was “making great progress.” The hospital staff was lying to her. When she visited the hospital later that day, she observed her cat’s frightening comatose condition. She wanted to take him to a different clinic, but she let him remain at the animal hospital after she was again assured that he was “doing great.”

He wasn’t. Dennis died after 18 hours of treatment on December 7, 2017.

Anvary had paid the Hospital $2,300 for Dennis’ treatment. When she reviewed the cat’s medical records, she learned that her warnings about flea medicine had been ignored. After the cat was given the medicine, he had a seizure. An overdose of anti-seizure medicine followed. Dennis also vomited and was given anti-nausea medication instead of being evaluated for allergies or overdoses. Anvary believed the vets had breached their duty of care and their duty to truthfully advise her about her cat’s medications and reactions to them. She said these actions were intentional because the vets wanted Dennis to remain in the hospital to incur additional costs.

Plaintiff sued the vets and the hospital in December 2019 for conversion, negligence, deceit and trespass to chattel, a tort that punishes those who interfere with the use of another’s property. Defendants demurred and moved to strike the complaints because they were barred by the one-year statute of limitations on veterinary malpractice. Anvary chose to amend her original complaint, omitting her charges of negligence but maintaining her other three causes of action. She said her cat “was suffering and dying because of the intentional misconduct of the defendants who knew about his true condition” but deliberately concealed it from the plaintiff.

When she read the cat’s medical records after his death, she learned that he had been given flea medicine, anti-seizure medication, and anti-nausea medication. She said the doctors should have determined the cause of the seizures rather than simply administering additional medicine.

Defendants demurred again, based on the statute of limitations and plaintiff’s failure to state all the causes of action that were necessary to support her claims for punitive damages. The trial court dismissed all of plaintiff’s claims because of the one-year time limit and because plaintiff’s charges were insufficient to support intentional tort allegations that had longer statutes of limitations. The case was dismissed in August 2021.

The unanimous opinion of District Seven of the Second Circuit California Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Anvary’s case to the trial court with instructions to enter a new order. The order sustained defendants’ demurrers to the causes of action for trespass and conversion but overruled the demurrers for deceit and fraud. The unanimous unpublished opinion was authored by Justice Dennis Perliss.

The opinion reviewed the ruling of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bernie LaForteza and found that he correctly sustained the demurrers of defendants that gave the plaintiff leave to amend. But, he erred when he applied the one-year time limit to Anvary’s claims for deceit. Anvary’s other claims which were not filed on time were properly dismissed, despite her attempts to argue they should be allowed under the delayed discovery rule. LaForteza was correct when he ruled that plaintiff could have received Dennis’ medical record and the hospital’s billing records in a timely fashion.

Perliss then turned to Anvary’s fraud and deceit case which has a longer statute of limitations. He reversed LaForteza’s dismissal for trespass to chattel and conversion and overruled his demurrers for deceit. Plaintiff’s case for deceit will be heard. He also said that plaintiff’s claims that the erroneous reports about Dennis were given for financial gain “would benefit” from additional information when the case goes forward.