Judges bare their teeth over dog lawsuit

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnists Spivak and Bice comment on a recent Seventh Circuit case, an appeal in a case brought by Sherry Wall of Brookfield.

Last year, Wall filed suit in state and federal court after Brookfield officials impounded her Doberman because they found it running wild in her neighborhood.

The court couldn't see making a federal case out of it.

But [Judge Richard] Posner and his fellow appeals court judges dissented, laughing openly several times during the oral arguments on April 4 in Chicago.

After Posner noted that some people consider Doberman Pinschers frightening animals, Ertl responded with one of the stranger civil-rights arguments ever voiced:

"There may very well be a dog breed . . . prejudice," Ertl earnestly told the chuckling jurists.

Judge Posner might have anticipated the eventual extension of the 14th Amendment to other species and pre-emptively found a rational classification.

"I wouldn't call it prejudice - a Doberman Pinscher is a dangerous animal," Posner said, adding later: "It's not like a hamster."