- Pets, they're just like people,
except in any meaningful way
though the vast majority of Americans have a pet.
According to a survey
from the American Pet Products Association,
67% of U.S. households have at least one pet.
This goes all the way to the White House.
Some American presidents hate dogs
and would never have one in the White House,
and other U.S. presidents
employ bloodthirsty killing machines on White House grounds.
And while we tend to think of our fur babies
as our own children,
what rights do they really have?
Even though there's no rule
that says dogs can't play basketball,
could a cat inherit millions of dollars?
Could a dog run a Fortune 500 company?
Could a monkey own a copyright?
Or could an elephant run for office?
Well, the answer is it depends because it always depends.
But let's find out what rights pets actually have
because this is America,
and you better believe that this has wound up
in American courts before,
and it's going to end up in courts again.
(contemplative music)
And perhaps the thing that Americans love more than lawsuits
is their pets.
In 2019, Americans spent a record $95.7 billion
on their pets, which makes sense.
When it comes to our animal friends,
most of us would spare no expense to ensure
that they're happy, healthy and pampered
like Meowxander Hamilton here.
What happens if you want to make sure
that your Meowxander Hamilton is taken care of
in the event of your untimely death?
Well, that actually raises some interesting legal questions.
Let's start with the basics.
While many of us may treat our pets like people,
legally speaking, pets are actually considered property
in the United States.
As a result, animals lack the legal ability,
also known as capacity, to enter into a contract.
Capacity refers to one's demonstrated competence
to understand one's actions
and enter into a legally binding agreement
with another through mutual assent.
And while we may think that our pets understand us
when, after maybe one too many scotches,
we tell them about the challenges
of running your own law practice and YouTube channel,
under the law, they do not.
And since animals are property under the law,
they can't enter into contracts.
That means that they cannot legally receive
or own property.
As a result, an owner's attempts
to directly leave property to the pet will fail.
In the case of In Re Estate of Russell,
a California court of appeals addressed
whether a pet owner can legally divide her estate
between a close friend and her dog, Roxy Russell.
And the trial court held that despite the language
in the will directly leaving property to Roxy the dog,
the owner actually intended to leave her entire estate
to the close friend to care for the dog.
But the court of appeals rejected this interpretation,
holding instead that the will unambiguously sought
to divide the estate between the friend and the dog.
The court further rejected any argument
that the pet owner had created trust to care for Roxy,
as the will did not demonstrate a specific intent
to impose on the friend the duty to care for Roxy.
Ruling that a dog cannot be a direct will beneficiary,
the court concluded that the gifts to Roxy were invalid.
And accordingly, half of the owner's estate
that had been intended for Roxy as a matter of law
went to the owner's closest relative, her niece.
So to avoid problems like the Russell case as of 2016,
all 50 states and DC have passed laws regarding the creation
and use of so-called pet trusts.
A pet trust is a legal arrangement
that outlines how your pet shall be provided for
and taken care of financially in the event
of your untimely death disability.
And in the vast majority of cases,
pet trusts and gifts are non-controversial.
On occasion, they make international news,
especially when millions of dollars are at stake.
Like for example, in 2007, when Leona Helmsley,
a New York billionaire real estate developer,
left her Maltese, Trouble, $12 million in a trust fund.
Known as the queen of mean
for her cervic personality the way that she mistreated
her employees, Helmsley also specifically disinherited
two of her own grandchildren in her will
quote for reasons which are known to them, ouch.
However, in 2008,
a New York judge slashed Trouble's inheritance
from $12 million to $2 million on the grounds
that Helmsley was mentally unfit when she'd made her will.
As a result,
the two disinherited grandchildren
received a total of six million.
And despite her queen of mean reputation,
Helmsley clearly had a soft spot for her dog Trouble
who died in 2011, presumably on a bed
of lots and lots of money.
Though parenthetically, that's not the only thing
that she had a soft spot for.
She also had a soft spot for not paying taxes.
Famously, she said we don't pay taxes,
only the little people pay taxes.
And in 1989, Helmsley was convicted
of federal tax income evasion, and other crimes.
It turns out that not all abrasive New York
real estate developers who mistreat everyone around them
get away with not paying their taxes.
Though sentenced to 16 years,
she only served 19 months in prison
and two months of house arrest.
Though Helmsley was not alone in leaving obscene amounts
of money to her pets.
In 2019, German fashion designer,
Karl Lagerfeld died and upon his death,
it was revealed that Lagerfeld had left a chunk
of his near $300 million fortune to Choupette,
a Burmese cat.
Though the pair lived in France,
which prohibits pets from directly inheriting
their owner's property, under German law,
which governs Lagerfeld's will, pets may inherit property.
And in June 2020, it was reported
that not only were there seven other human beneficiaries,
but none of the human errors
had been able to gain access to their share of the estate.
That's because Lagerfeld's octogenarian accounts,
Lucien Frydlender, the only person with enough knowledge
of Lagerfeld's vast to state to aid in the distribution
to the beneficiary mysteriously closed up shop
in September 2019 and has been avoiding everyone's calls.
Frydlender's wife insisted that her husband has not quote
run off to an island,
but is simply just too sick to work on the case.
But of course,
that definitely sounds like the sort of thing
that someone who was hiding away
on a private island might say.
So while Lagerfeld's beneficiaries
fight for their inheritance,
Choupette does not even need the money.
The famous feline who has hundreds of thousands of followers
on Instagram already earns millions of euros each year
by appearing in advertising campaigns on magazine covers
and even has her own wine brand and makeup line.
She's basically the cat equivalent of the Kardashians.
Clearly I'm in the wrong business as a lawyer
and should have pursued a lucrative career
as an international multimillionaire cat model.
So yeah, I guess I'm saying if anyone needs
a YouTube bird model, give me a call.
But the past is the past,
speaking of which, remember in 2019
when a banana taped to a wall sold for $120,000?
If you found yourself asking did a monkey make this,
well, not this time,
but there is plenty of animal made art out there
like Pockets Warhol, a Capuchin monkey
who's been painting since 2011
and then there's Lucky the rescue elephant
painting in Cambodia and while seeing animals make art
is fun, it raises an interesting question.
Do these animals actually own the copyright
in the works that they create?
I've covered copyright law in previous videos,
but to summarize briefly,
copyright extends legal protection to authors
of any original work fixed
in a tangible medium of expression
such as just painting songs, novels,
and even photographs.
The holder of a copyright owns a set of exclusive rights
to make and sell copies of their works,
create every works and perform
and display their works publicly.
Now the issue whether animals own the copyright
in their artistic creations were at the forefront
of what became known as the monkey selfie case.
See back in 2011, a macaque monkey named Naruto.
I assume that's Naruto as in the anime
and not as in Naruto as in Pablo,
but using a camera strategically placed
by British nature photographer, David John Slater
while on assignment in Indonesia
famously took a monkey selfie.
Slater included Naruto's photos in a book he published.
These photos subsequently went viral and in 2015,
the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA
known for their attention grabbing protests
that has made them the frequent target for parody
sued Slater and the self publishing company blurb
on Naruto's behalf.
- The outside world looks down on a man marrying a llama,
but our love knows no boundaries.
- Wow, you guys really love animals.
- PETA argued that publishing and selling the photographs
infringed on Naruto's rights under the U.S. copyright act.
And PETA sought a judgment affirming Naruto's copyright
in the photos and requested that PETA
be appointed to administer all proceeds from the photos
for the endangered species benefit.
The defendants countered that as a monkey,
Naruto could not own a copyright.
And while the case was pending,
numerous copyright experts in both the U.S. and UK
argued that Slater's role in the photographic process
and his artistic choices would be sufficient
to grant him a copyright in the photographs,
though a formal court judgment might be necessary
to be determinative.
In fact, in a December 14 publication,
the United States Copyright Office stated
that quote to qualify as a work of authorship,
a work must be created by a human being,
specifically stating that a photograph taken by a monkey
or a mural painted by an animal
would not receive copyright protection.
And in January 2016,
the U.S. district court agreed
with district court judge William Orrick
writing while Congress and the president
can extend the protection of law to animals
as well as humans,
there is no indication that they did so
in the Copyright Act.
PETA appealed to the ninth circuit court of appeals
and in September 2017,
both PETA and the photographer agreed to a settlement
in which Slater would donate 25% of any future revenue
to charities that protect the macaque habitats.
Unfortunately for Slater, the damage was already done.
The litigation had been financially devastating to him,
leaving him broke and unable to pay his attorney
or even replace the broken camera equipment.
Now after settling, PETA attended to dismiss the case,
but the ninth circuit refused stating that it wanted to set
a legal precedent for similar cases
that would arise in the future.
The panel also ripped the animal welfare organization
for what it viewed as PETA attempting to manipulate
the legal precedent in a way that suits their own interests.
And in 2018, the ninth circuit did set a precedent,
unanimously ruling that while humans
can file copyright lawsuits, animals may not.
And as a result, the court concluded that Naruto
did not own any copyright in the photos.
Now, the three judge panel also excoriated PETA
for its litigation tactics,
accusing the organization of using Naruto
as a tool for its own ideological agenda
while pretending to be a friend.
PETA appears to have failed
to live up to the title of friend.
In the wake of PETA's proposed dismissal,
Naruto is left without an advocate,
his supposed friend having abandoned Naruto's
substantive claims and what appears
to be an effort to prevent the publication of a decision
adverse to PETA's institutional interests.
Were he capable of recognizing this abandonment,
we wonder whether Naruto might initiate an action
for breach of confidential relationship
against his former next friend PETA for its failure
to pursue his interests before its own.
Puzzlingly, while representing to the world
that animals are not ours to eat, wear,
experiment on, use for entertainment
or abuse in any other way,
PETA seems to employ Naruto as an unwitting pawn
in its ideological goals.
So there you have it.
The ninth circuit says that currently,
the Copyright Act does not apply to animals,
but it could be extended to do so
and it accuses PETA of treating animals unethically,
but that's just silly copyright issues.
What about animals holding real power?
Well, there've been countless movies and TV shows
over the years with the exact same story
of down on their luck sports team
immediately changes their fortune
by substituting the team's animal mascot.
And they all seem to get around
the very, very obvious objections
such a substitution in the exact same way.
Well, show me in the rule book where it says
that we can't substitute our animal mascot of choice
who happens to be magically good at this particular sport
into our particular sports ball team.
Show me in the rules.
- He's right, ain't no rules
that the dog can't play basketball.
- Lawyered, just don't look at the Copyright Act, I guess.
But in the real world,
although there's no specific rule against substituting
the entire Chicago bears lineup with a sleuth of bears,
yes that is the actual group name for a group of bears,
in part because the bears would always be offsides
and not for nothing,
they would probably rip the opposing team to shreds,
but in the late 19th century,
the political term the yellow dog Democrat
described to Southern voters who allegedly would vote
for a yellow dog before any Republican.
Now you might be surprised to know that many voters
in U.S. history have followed that mantra
by electing animals to local office.
Now generally speaking,
election law regulations would disqualify animal candidates
by explicitly requiring candidates just to be human
or perhaps by requiring candidates
to at least perform tasks that only humans can perform
such as sign their names legibly.
However, when the law is silent or ambiguous on the matter,
certain localities, usually unincorporated towns,
have allowed animal office holders
under the same logic of air bud.
Well, there's nothing in the election code
that says we can't have a dog mayor
so let's do that apparently for some reason.
And wouldn't you know it in 1938,
Boston Curtis, a brown mule,
was put forward as a candidate for
a Republican precinct committee man
in the small town of Milton Washington.
Boston was nominated by the democratic mayor
Ken Asimons as a prank for two reasons.
One, he wanted to embarrass the Republican party
and he wanted to show the flaws of the primary system
in which voters quote often have no idea whom they support.
The mayor would be proven correct
because humans are stupid.
Boston was elected with 51% of the vote,
despite not offering a platform or making a speech
and being known as someone that was stubborn as a mule
and in the unincorporated town of Lajitas, Texas,
they live up to the state's reputation
for demanding limited government.
Since the 1980s,
the town has consistently elected members
of one political dynasty, Clary Henry,
the beer drinking goat.
I mean, just look at him,
there's a kid you could really grab a beer with.
Now, this saga began when a man who had the audacity
to be from Houston decided to run for mayor
and an outraged local businessman
challenged him with a goat.
Though the Houstonian won that election,
Clay Henry won the next one in a landslide and since then,
every Clay Henry has been elected.
Today, the town is actually under the leadership
of Clay Henry the fourth,
but when it comes to electing animals to office
in the United States,
dogs remained by far the most popular choice.
In 1981, Roscoe, a black Labrador Rottweiler mix,
defeated two humans to become mayor of Sonoma, California.
He of course ran as a Republican on an agenda
of a bone in every dish,
a cat in every tree and a fire hydrant on every corner.
He served his community for 13 years until his death.
And there's actually a statute in his honor.
Similarly, Idyllwild California is an unincorporated town
and has no local government, but since 2012,
the town has modeled its election as a fundraiser
for the benefit
of a local animal rescue nonprofit organization.
Locals would nominate their dogs and cats to run for mayor.
14 dogs and two cats ran in the first election and Max,
a golden retriever, was elected as its first mayor.
When Mayor Max crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2013,
he was succeeded by another golden retriever,
Maximus Mighty Dog Mueller the second
or Mighty Max for short
who still leads the town to this day.
His oath reads I, Max, do swear on my food bowl
to faithfully execute my duties as mayor of Idyllwild.
The mayor's duties include meeting with the constituents
in his pickup truck,
attending city events and making a variety of appearances
on state and local media to promote the town.
But of course,
the downside of having a dog run for mayor
is calls like these.
- [Speaker] Hello, this is a paid political advertisement
from the mayor.
(barking sound)
My name is and I approve this message.
- But on the other hand,
Mayor Maximus Mighty Dog Mueller the second
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