Should I take vets to court??

albacookie

Sorry to hear about your cat but in the eyes of the law animals are posessions so they probably wouldn't award you any more than what you had to spend to have her PTS if you went to court.

DrScotsman

Fire_Fox wrote: »

There is always a choice, but it might be a choice you don't want to have to make: don't get a pet OR get pet insurance OR use the services of the PDSA OR sign your animal over to a rescue who will pay for veterinary treatment OR agree to the treatment and then pay the vets bill off in installments.

I think cakeordeath explained this better than I did. The OP/OP's husband had called the emergency vet not knowing it would cost over £350. When they found out the price there was no time whatsoever for any of those options to be considered, the kitten's life was in danger. So there were only two choices: pay for the operation or pay for it to be put to sleep. They couldn't afford it thus reducing it to one choice (unless you also think the OP was lying and simply didn't care about the kitten's life )

DrScotsman

albacookie wrote: »

In the eyes of the law animals are posessions so they probably wouldn't award you any more than what you had to spend to have her PTS.

Being a possession does not stop the court from awarding compensation for distress the vet negligently caused.

trudij

How has the OP's vet been negligent?? Im missing something here....

cyberbob

DrScotsman wrote: »

So there were only two choices: pay for the operation or pay for it to be put to sleep. They couldn't afford it thus reducing it to one choice (unless you also think the OP was lying and simply didn't care about the kitten's life )

No there were other choices. Ask the vet to pay in instalments which most vets will happily do. There's always choices

Ruby_Moon

eveie189 wrote: »

I would like some opinions please on whether or not I should take the vets I use to court and if I am being reasonable asking for the amount I am.

We had a kitten and as soon as she turned 6 months I took her to have her vaccinations and be spayed. The operation went fine and we took her home. A few days later (on a weekend) she pulled out her stitches and started pulling her intestines out. I phoned the emergency vets who said I would have to pay £60 as well as the cost of anyn treatment. I said ok and sent my husband through. By the time he got there she was a right mess and they said it would cost £370 to have the operation to fix her (at this point you are probably thinking I should have expected this but my last cat had a cesarean and that only cost £190). We couldn't afford this and they said the only other option would be to have her put down and this would cost £136 which we paid.
The next day I went to my vets only to be told that the emergency vet should not have attempted to charge us anything as THEY cover the costs which means my cat died for nothing. They have since sent us a letter confirming that this is their error and the cat shiould never have died. they have offered £236 which is £136 for what we paid and £100 FOR A NEW CAT. We are all traumatised by this escpeciall;y my daughter who saw the cat do this to herself and from the calls made on that night has figured out what has happened. I have said I feel we are entitled to £500 compensation and have refused their offer and I just wanted to know what others think. Am i being greedy? Do you think I would win if I took it to court. I just don't know but as I have pointed out in my letter to them I will now never own a cat again but if I wanted to get a dog it would cost much more than they are offering.

Any opinions would be grately appreciated
Thanks
Eveie

How the hell can you blame someone else for your own stupidity and neglect!? It wasn't the vet who allowed her to pull her stitches out.
Think yourself lucky that you haven't been charged with animal neglect and cruelty! :eek::mad::mad:

Rachel83

Surely if it was an emergency vet you would have told them to go ahead with the operation then contact the original vet who did the operation explain the situation and get them to pay that bill.
Why wasn't that route explored first before just putting her to sleep them asking for compensation?

Claire_Bear

DrScotsman wrote: »

What if the OP didn't have a choice? What if she literally had no money and no means of borrowing? What would you say then?

I'd say she shouldn't have got the kitten in the first place if she was living right on the edge of her finances and didn't have enough cash spare in case something like this happened. I know it couldn't have been forseen, and it was a lot of money to be unexpectedly asked to pay, but a responsible pet owner should always have some money in the bank in case of emergencies, and vets bills can be costly. Accidents can happen at any time when you own a pet, if the vet didn't have the policy of paying for it themself, the cat still would have been pts because the OP couldn't have afforded to keep her alive. To ask them for more money seems incredibly greedy to me, I'd say she was lucky they offered her anything other than the cost of the treatment in the first place.

DrScotsman

trudij wrote: »

How has the OP's vet been negligent?? Im missing something here....

1. An emergency vet clearly has a duty of care to his..er...patients, and their owners.
2. It sounds to me that the reasonable emergency vet would not have made the mistake of saying the OP had to pay for the operation. Hence duty of care breached.
3. Unless the operation was unlikely to succeed, the emergency vet clearly caused the losses of the OP: She could not afford to pay the operation and hence she lost her cat (which as a possession the E.V. are agreeing to pay for) and has had a mountain of distress caused

I mean seriously though, the OP mentions that the E.V. has already admitted guilt, so these are all covered.

trudij

But didnt she also imply that the emergency vet wasnt her vet (and isnt the one doing the compensating)???? so why is she after getting MORE compensation from her vet when they effectively had nothing to do with it??

(bearing in mind that most small animal vets dont do their own out of hours these days, Im assuming this is the case wherever the OP is too, so the emergency vet wont have known that there was another vet involved unless told, and there would not have been the time to mess about getting history and the like from the OPs vet from the sounds of things.)

Im just really confused by this - I promise Im not being deliberately thick !!!