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- Title
REASSESSING ANIMALS AND POTENTIAL LEGAL PERSONHOOD: DO ANIMALS HAVE RIGHTS OR DUTIES?
- Authors
Soderberg, Bailey
- Abstract
Under legal theory, a person is “any being whom the law regards as capable of rights or duties.”1 The First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division did not complete a new analysis after the Third Judicial Department relied on an incorrect definition of a “legal person” from Black’s Law Dictionary.2 The incorrect definition contributed to an ultimate holding that Tommy, a chimpanzee, did not meet the threshold of legal personhood.3 This article will undertake the analysis of the rights or duties of animals based on the correct definition. Animals exist in a strange legal purgatory, caught between their classification as property and their existence as conscious beings. In certain circumstances, animals are afforded legal protections or benefits that create exceptions to their property status.4 Animals are also subject to certain duties in both human and non-human contexts.5 To achieve a legal status that reflects the role of animals in both human society and non-human communities, animals should be given a default legal categorization of legal persons with exceptions, rather than property with exceptions. This article will provide an overview of animals and their status in the United States legal system. Part I will discuss the case of Tommy and the evaluation of his personhood based on an error in the definition of “person.” Tommy’s case serves as the premise for the evaluation of animal capacity for rights or duties in this article. Part II will explore the specific rights and duties of animals, showing that the argument for qualification of animals as legal persons should be reevaluated. Finally, Part III will advance a proposal for the future of animal classification, attempting to close the gap between their lack of legal protections and their existence as sentient beings.
- Subjects
PERSONALITY (Theory of knowledge); JURISPRUDENCE; ANIMAL rights; ANIMAL laws; BLACK'S Law Dictionary (Book)
- Publication
Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 2023, Vol 24, Issue 3, p171
- ISSN
1936-4253
- Publication type
Article