Cat was euthanised by mistake

Breeze01

Hello,

I don't want to give too many details at this stage but could really do with some advice.

Recently I took my cat to be treated at a vet, the vet went to euthanise another animal but put mine to sleep by mistake. Upon further investigation this appears to be a systemic issue, with the vet distraught and clearly overworked. 
I was not after a huge amount of financial compensation initially, however the corporation in question has been unhelpful and even tried to trick us into signing a non disclosure agreement in order to refund our fees (no mention of any goodwill gesture in site until i complained, we then refused their second offer as it was insulting and we were now furious after the NDA).
I'm now being advised from many different parties in the vet industry that a pet is only recognised as a possession in law, so legally they have to do no more than compensate our financial losses. We have been absolutely distraught by this experience and are also now experiencing difficulties due to being over £1k in vet fees short (our cat was insured but we were told the vet company would pay, so have not claimed).
Is this money grabbing company really not going to be made to compensate for killing our pet and the significant emotional damage this has caused?
Please note, I am really keen for specific people (eg the vet) or even the practice to not be implicated in this, the issue is the conditions they were working under, due to the corporation under staffing the practice. 

tacpot12

Do you have home insurance, and if so, do you have legal expenses cover? If you do, call the legal helpline provided by the insurer and ask for help with this. 

I wouldn't pay any of their bills for treatment you had on your cat as it was wasted by their mistake. I don't think a judge would order you to pay for treatment on an animal that was euthanised by mistake. You shouldn't have to claim on your insurance for the treatment your cat received. Signing the NDA might be necessary to get them to cancel all the fees, but I would take it to the wire with them. 

Katiehound

Have you had this conversation with your pet insurers?
They may be able to help here

I know you don't want to implicate the vet but I suspect that might be the only way- this is worth a read:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/complaining-about-misconduct-or-negligence-vets/

sheramber

You say they offered to refund your fees. Is that the £1000 you refer to?
Bottom line is how much do you want that wouldn’t be insulting? 

Have you told them how much you want? 

I would think a NDA is standard in these cases. 

MSE_Laura_F

I'm so sorry your cat was taken from you in this shockingly sudden way. I can't imagine what you must be going through.

Undervalued

Breeze01 said:

Hello,

I don't want to give too many details at this stage but could really do with some advice.

Recently I took my cat to be treated at a vet, the vet went to euthanise another animal but put mine to sleep by mistake. Upon further investigation this appears to be a systemic issue, with the vet distraught and clearly overworked. 
I was not after a huge amount of financial compensation initially, however the corporation in question has been unhelpful and even tried to trick us into signing a non disclosure agreement in order to refund our fees (no mention of any goodwill gesture in site until i complained, we then refused their second offer as it was insulting and we were now furious after the NDA).
I'm now being advised from many different parties in the vet industry that a pet is only recognised as a possession in law, so legally they have to do no more than compensate our financial losses. We have been absolutely distraught by this experience and are also now experiencing difficulties due to being over £1k in vet fees short (our cat was insured but we were told the vet company would pay, so have not claimed).
Is this money grabbing company really not going to be made to compensate for killing our pet and the significant emotional damage this has caused?
Please note, I am really keen for specific people (eg the vet) or even the practice to not be implicated in this, the issue is the conditions they were working under, due to the corporation under staffing the practice. 

Legally those issues are not your concern. Your claim is against the person or practice you dealt with. You have no control over how they deal with the matter internally.

You could (maybe should) make a complaint to the RCVS about the vet responsible. That may seem harsh but ultimately he or she was the person who made the tragic mistake. It is not for you to second guess or make allowances for their work conditions or indeed any personal issues they may have.

As you say your legal entitlement to compensation (as opposed to a refund of fees) is limited because of the fact that the law regards a pet animal as a chattel. So, sadly, they can make any offer of compensation beyond the actual financial value conditional on signing a NDA.

You can of course refuse to sign and take your story to the press. Many would! Some may argue that might be the best way of forcing some change in the company.

Your concern for the vet him / her self is laudable but is there not a wider concern for future patients / clients? What is most likely to bring about some change?

Sorry for your loss.

TripleH

Sorry for your loss.

I can't advise about emotional redress here, might the solution be to get 'credit' on future treatment for another cat? 

You benefit in saving on fees, the vet benefits in not having a cash outlay and if you get a rescue cat, more importantly the cat gains by having a lovely hone to go to.

I fully understand your loss, all I can offer is an option that gives the most benefit to you and as it can help save face, the vet.

TBagpuss

That's dreadful, it must be so upsetting for you and as you say, does suggest that there are some fiarly systematic issues with that practice.

What I would suggest in the first instnacce is that you make a formal comtplain t using whatever complaints process they have, set outin the complaint what happened and what, specifally, you want as a result.

e.g. if you want
- a formal apology,
- an explanation of how this happened and what steps have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again
- IF you are seeking afiancial settlement, exactly what you are asking for e.g refund of costs incurred / payment of compensation etc. 
then set this out explicitly.

Have you tried https://www.vetmediation.co.uk/ ? 

Fianlly, you could consider trying one of the consumer champion type jornalists - they tend to e based on fiancial issues but might bewilling to deal with something like this and often organisations will respond better to someone they know is a joirnalist than to a member of the public - https://www.theguardian.com/money/series/bachelor-and-brignall-consumer-champions is the one in the guardina, for instnace, but a lot of papers have someone simialr (usually to be found in the weekend sections!) I think the Gusrdian one is general consuer issues rather than *just* finacial issues, so might be a good choice . 

Slinky

TripleH said:

Sorry for your loss.

I can't advise about emotional redress here, might the solution be to get 'credit' on future treatment for another cat? 

You benefit in saving on fees, the vet benefits in not having a cash outlay and if you get a rescue cat, more importantly the cat gains by having a lovely hone to go to.

I fully understand your loss, all I can offer is an option that gives the most benefit to you and as it can help save face, the vet.

Are you serious? Who on earth would trust a vets who had made that sort of mistake with another of their pets? Talk about an elephant in the room anytime you had a consultation with them!

billy2shots

Slinky said:

TripleH said:

Sorry for your loss.

I can't advise about emotional redress here, might the solution be to get 'credit' on future treatment for another cat? 

You benefit in saving on fees, the vet benefits in not having a cash outlay and if you get a rescue cat, more importantly the cat gains by having a lovely hone to go to.

I fully understand your loss, all I can offer is an option that gives the most benefit to you and as it can help save face, the vet.

Are you serious? Who on earth would trust a vets who had made that sort of mistake with another of their pets? Talk about an elephant in the room anytime you had a consultation with them!

Definitely don't take elephants to them. 

TripleH

Slinky said:

TripleH said:

WSorry for your loss.

I can't advise about emotional redress here, might the solution be to get 'credit' on future treatment for another cat? 

You benefit in saving on fees, the vet benefits in not having a cash outlay and if you get a rescue cat, more importantly the cat gains by having a lovely hone to go to.

I fully understand your loss, all I can offer is an option that gives the most benefit to you and as it can help save face, the vet.

Are you serious? Who on earth would trust a vets who had made that sort of mistake with another of their pets? Talk about an elephant in the room anytime you had a consultation with them!

Mistakes sadly do happen. The question is what caused the error? The vets providing care could have done nothing wrong and it could be clerical?

It might be 1 vet at the practice and the other 4 provide the best care? (I have no knowledge of the practice in question) or it could be the only error the person has ever made and its eating them up inside / they have learnt/ put safeguards in place to prevent it happening again.

What's to say you can find another vet in the area and they are any better?

Having a pet put down is heart breaking especially if they were perfectly healthy, but sadly in law they are viewed as 'merely property' and the emotional impact they bring to our lives is not factored in.

As harsh as it sounds, suing the vets would bring very little beyond what they offered (unless I suspect, the pet was say a trained companion).

I personally don't think suing would provide the closure to this the OP is after. Apologies if it caused offence, the intention was to provide a possible solution, besides if it was the Op's future pets I suspect extra care would be taken to minimise a recurrence.