[nagdu] No Food Stamps for Service Dog

David Baker david at bakerinet.com
Fri Apr 9 12:35:10 UTC 2010


 From the ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter, April 9, 2010:
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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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