[blindlaw] No Food Stamps for Service Dog, But His Disabled Owner May Now Have a Lawyer, ABA Journal, April 7 2010

John Ramsey joramsey at cox.net
Mon Apr 12 20:20:31 UTC 2010


So are we to infer that the 9th circuit is now going to rule that dogs
should get food stamps?

John A. Ramsey Jr., P.A.

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-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Nightingale, Noel
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 3:43 PM
To: 'blindlaw at nfbnet.org'
Subject: [blindlaw] No Food Stamps for Service Dog, But His Disabled Owner
May Now Have a Lawyer, ABA Journal, April 7 2010



Link:
http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/article/no_food_stamps_for_service_dog_but_
his_disabled_owner_may_now_have_a_lawyer

Text:
No Food Stamps for Service Dog, But His Disabled Owner May Now Have a Lawyer
Posted April 7, 2010 By Martha Neil

A service dog doesn't qualify for food stamps, a Pennsylvania court has
ruled, because he isn't human.

But the animal's disabled owner, James Douris, may not have to argue the
legal issue on his own much longer. Although he lost a pro se Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Court case arguing that the dog's nutritional requirements
should be taken into account, as a household member, in determining his
owner's food stamp allotment, Douris says his phone has been ringing off the
hook since the court's decision yesterday, reports the L.A. Unleashed blog
of the Los Angeles Times.

Among those calling are lawyers who want to help him with an appeal, he
says. Even the court that ruled against him, upholding an earlier
determination by the Department of Public Welfare, apparently would have
liked to see a different result:

"This court is sympathetic to [Douris'] argument that his service dog is a
necessity for him due to his disability, and that he lacks the funds to
properly feed his service dog," states Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer in the
written opinion. "We hope that there is some other state or federal program
that might provide for the maintenance and upkeep of [the] dog."

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