You’ve probably heard about Green Acre Kennel, the dog-boarding facility in Gilbert, Arizona where at least twenty (the count seems to vary from one news source to another) dead dogs were discovered last weekend. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (yes, that Sheriff Joe) initially called it an “accident,” but has now announced that he will conduct a “thorough investigation.” Here’s a quick guide to the legal issues involved.

Arizona, along with every other state in the U.S., has felony provisions for animal cruelty. Arizona’s law went into effect in 1999, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund. A report on the case at The Daily Beast looks at the civil liability angle. In many states, such as Texas, civil liability for causing injury or death to an animal—meaning a pet in this sort of case—is limited to the animal’s fair market value. It does not include other compensatory damages, nor does it includes any sort of noneconomic damages for what is, for many people, the loss of a family member. The Daily Beast‘s article discusses some of the civil claims that may arise under one Arizona lawyer’s take on that state’s laws:

Attorney John Schill works for a criminal defense law firm in Phoenix, but he personally handles local dog cases, typically defending canines who’ve been declared “vicious” from euthanization. He told The Daily Beast that he’s been receiving calls from people every day since the dogs were first found dead on the Green Acre property. He’s representing five families with a dead dog—including a man who just discovered his pet was dead when he returned from vacation on Tuesday—in a civil liability suit against the Hugheses. All of his clients, Schill said, were misled, both by the website and by their tour of Green Acre, about what kind of facility the Hugheses were actually housing their dogs in.

“All of these people, they’re pretty computer savvy, literate people. They really researched this place out,” Schill said. “They were all given tours, told the dogs roam the yard and that they only keep about six dogs at a time. In reality, there was five times as many dogs in one room all the time.”

Schill is looking to determine if the Hugheses fraudulently deceived his clients. In addition to whether the treatment of the dogs in their care amounted to criminal animal abuse and neglect, he suggests the Hugheses could be guilty of theft.

“These people gave their dogs to this boarding facility to watch them. Then the boarding facility let these dogs die, or run away, we don’t know,” Schill said. “Instead of fessing up, they hid the dogs with the intent of doing something with the dogs instead of telling the owners. That’s like if I lend you my car for the weekend and when I come to pick it up, you park it behind your house and say it got stolen.”

Schill said he’s also received calls from people who’ve also had horrible experiences boarding their dogs with the Hugheses in the past. One woman said her dog came back from Green Acre with unexplained chemical burns. Another man said he went to pick up his dogs from the Hugheses and was told they weren’t there.

“They say they treat the dogs like family,” Schill said, referring to the Green Acre website, which has been taken down. “They treat the dogs like the lefthanded stepchild and put them in a the back room and left them there.”

It sounds to me like the lawyer might be contemplating claims for fraud, conversion (the civil-litigation term for “theft”), and perhaps consumer-protection statute violations. That still leaves the question of damages unanswered.

Arizona’s animal cruelty statute, § 13-2910, defines “animal cruelty,” in terms relevant to this case, as:

A. A person commits cruelty to animals if the person does any of the following:

1. Intentionally, knowingly or recklessly subjects any animal under the person’s custody or control to cruel neglect or abandonment.

2. Intentionally, knowingly or recklessly fails to provide medical attention necessary to prevent protracted suffering to any animal under the person’s custody or control.

3. Intentionally, knowingly or recklessly inflicts unnecessary physical injury to any animal.

4. Recklessly subjects any animal to cruel mistreatment.

5. Intentionally, knowingly or recklessly kills any animal under the custody or control of another person without either legal privilege or consent of the owner.

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8. Intentionally or knowingly subjects any animal under the person’s custody or control to cruel neglect or abandonment that results in serious physical injury to the animal.

9. Intentionally or knowingly subjects any animal to cruel mistreatment.

Violation of any of the quoted provisions, except 9, is a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail (not prison). AZ Rev. Stat. §§ 13-2910(G), 13-707(A)(1).

Violation of paragraph 9 is a class 6 felony. AZ Rev. Stat. § 13-2910(G). The punishment for a class 6 felony is based on a complicated series of factors that I do not want to get into just now. AZ Rev. Stat. §§ 13-701, 13-702. A judge has discretion, in some circumstances, to reduce a class 6 felony to a class 1 misdemeanor. AZ Rev. Stat. § 13-604.

The statute also has specific provisions for injuries to service animals, which are defined as follows:

H. For the purposes of this section:

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5. ” Service animal” means an animal that has completed a formal training program, that assists its owner in one or more daily living tasks that are associated with a productive lifestyle and that is trained to not pose a danger to the health and safety of the general public.

Arizona definitely one-ups Texas on this issue, because its statute has a provision on liability for damages—it is only helpful, however, in the case of a dog that was a service animal. If a person is convicted of recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally “interfer[ing] with, kill[ing] or harm[ing] a working or service animal without either legal privilege or consent of the owner,” AZ Rev. Stat. § 13-2910(A)(6), (A)(10), that person may be civilly liable to the animal’s owner and/or handler. Damages may include:

• the replacement and training costs of the working or service animal;
• any veterinary bills;
• the salary of the handler for the period of time that the handler’s services are lost to the owner or agency; and
• the owner’s contractual losses with the agency.

AZ Rev. Stat. § 13-2910(E).

If none of the dogs were “service animals,” within the meaning of the statute, then the owners will have to rely on other legal principles to support a civil claim. Arizona courts have not explicitly recognized any right of recovery for emotional distress because of the death of a pet. This has been construed to mean that damages are limited to “market value.” Two key cases on this issue are Roman v. Carroll, 621 P.2d 307 (Ariz. App. 1980); and Kaufman v. Langhofer, 222 P.3d 272 (Ariz. App. 2009).