Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers v. Burch
Jan 01, 2018OUTCOME: Reached settlement with belligerent opposing party to client's satisfaction.
This case got some publicity, so all of the information in this paragraph is already publicly available. A company called Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers ("SDWR") recruited my client on the campus ... of Virginia Tech, where she was a student, to raise a puppy. SDWR told my client that she would raise the dog for a year, and, during that time, SDWR would provide monthly training sessions to prepare the dog, Lesley, to be a service dog. Well, these trainings became less and less frequent as time went on. After having Lesley for the better part of a year, my client started wondering what was going on with SDWR. Well, what was going on is that the Virginia Attorney General filed suit against SDWR alleging several counts of fraud, including not properly training the dogs that SDWR was selling to needy families for $25,000.00. When this came out, my client was concerned about Lesley's fate, and did not want to turn her over to SDWR. I thought this would be an easy case to settle, as SDWR would likely face bankruptcy and my client had property, Lesley, for which she would pay fair market value. Well, five months and at least six court appearances later, I finally settled the case.
