Suppose someone bring a litter of puppies to a vet to be euthenised. However, the vet took the pups and raised them and gave them away to other people, can the original owners sue?
Anybody can sue anybody else over anything, at least in the U.S. The question is not whether someone can sue, but how far the case will go before it gets decided (or thrown out.)
In any particular case, there are a variety of circumstances that could affect the legal status. What exactly was said when the puppies were given to the vet? What papers (if any) were signed? Did the vet make any profit from the deal? And a thousand other questions. That’s why we suggest that folks not seek legal advice online: any individual case may be different.
Why would someone want a litter of puppies euthanized?
It was a livejournal posting about an accidental mating and the owners were not prepared to handle it.
Here it is
Oh yeah, Stupid Pet Owners.
Sure there can be legal problems for the vet with this sort of thing. Anybody can sue over anything, as C.K. said. It’s possible that these people aren’t likely to actually take the vet to court, they don’t sound the type to want to spend extra money and paying a lawyer just to get some puppies killed seems a bit over the top.
The post says that the people brought the dog in to have the puppies aborted. This isn’t quite the same as requesting euthanasia. The vet could say that she performed the requested procedure and disposed of the biological products of the procedure in the best way she saw fit.
But we don’t really know the specifics, what exactly was requested and done and if they signed any forms and what those forms specify, it also depends on the laws where this occured.
Generally, the vets I have worked for would ask the owners if they could find homes for the puppies rather than euthanize them. If the owners said “no” the vet would put the puppies to sleep, or ask the owners to take them to another vet.
What are they going to sue for?
They could sue if the euthanasias were paid for and they weren’t performed.
Come springtime, lots of litters get put to sleep. People drop them off without the mother, and it’s really hard to find someone willing to/with the time and resources to bottle feed an entire litter for six weeks.
What I mean is, what damages would they claim?
Right! Puppies are already in their “youth”, by definition. Maybe that means to make them younger! 
- Jinx
Well, I’ve read about idiots who think that if their prized AKC bitch gets impregnated by a mutt, she’s genetically contaminated and cannot have purebred litters in the future. I recognize that’s not the case here. But with that kind of mediaeval misunderstanding of genetics and pregancy floating around, maybe this is something similar – maybe they fear that the existence of their dog’s babies will compromise her value in the future or something.
If they’re that ignorant and fearful, why doesn’t the vet just tell them she’s placed a voodoo curse on them to make them leave her alone?
Sailboat
As far as I know, the most they could ask for is their money back.
From the LJ post, it says the puppies were supposed to be aborted, but when the vet removed them from the mother they were alive and viable. If that’s the case and the owners only paid for an abortion I don’t see what the problem would be – they paid to have the fetuses removed, and they were removed. After that, it shouldn’t matter what was done with the puppies, whether they were euthanized and incinerated, kept alive, or stuffed and mounted on the wall.
My post was directed at the OP, in the situation of a litter being brought in to be put down. If a person came in with out-of-the-mother pups and paid for them to be euthanized and it wasn’t done, they could certainly ask for their money back. On the other hand, if an abortion was paid for and performed, the vet is free to do as he/she pleases with what was removed.
In the case the OP inquired about, a procedure was paid for and was not performed. Liken that to paying a doctor to remove your tonsils and waking up with your tonsils intact. Transaction incomplete, lawsuit ensues.
In the second case, they paid to have their dog’s uterus emptied, and received a dog with an empty uterus dog in return. Transaction complete. Lawsuit laughed at.
I can think of a good reason.
Let’s say that I have a dog, and she’s kinda snappish, and a one-person dog. It’s good with me, because I’m not married and I don’t have any kids. She had pups a few years ago, and when I gave them away to people, I had a couple of complaints and one of the puppies bit a toddler and had to be put down.
Now, the bitch got out again, and got herself knocked up, and I’m thinking-- I don’t want to keep a whole litter of puppies, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be legally liable if I give them away and the new owners are idiots. I also don’t want a bunch of puppies from the “same breed” (remember, most people don’t know the difference between a full and a half whatever, so if my dog’s a Lab, the puppies are “Lab puppies” too) wreaking havoc in my hometown and biting a city council member’s kid and getting ordinances passed so I can’t have MY dog in town!
So I take my dog to the vet, to have her de-puppied, because I don’t want irresponsible owners to raise these puppies that may inherit their mom’s temperament, and I can’t take care of the pups myself.
Under those circumstances, I’d be FURIOUS if the vet kept the puppies and then let other people have them, since that’s exactly what I went to the vet to prevent!
Besides-- in the case that the town has an ordinance about dog-breeding (i.e. a “puppy farm” law) or the person has some other legal reason NOT to be breeding dogs, having viable offspring of their dog running around could be a problem. Sure, the puppies came from “the vet,” but where did you get those puppies, Dr. Vet?
Corr
Or what if they were purebred puppies with a known defect and the vet kept them so that he could either profit from selling them (sans papers of course) or he just didn’t have the heart to kill cute little pups of that particular breed. The owner and possibly a local (or even national) breeders group could maintain that they were damaged by his allowing this defect to carried on to another generation.
In those last two situations, I would hope that the person would let the vet in on those details. I know, they shouldn’t have to, but if it were me, I would assume that anyone with a heart wouldn’t be able to throw a bunch of live and viable fetuses in the trash can without a second thought, and how else would the vet know about a genetic defect, or a mean temperament, without being told?
As with pretty much everything else, each situation is individual, and should be treated as such. It wouldn’t take five minutes to hash out those details and determine the vet’s course of action.
I’d say that a person that doesn’t want their dog’s snappish temperament passed on to its pups should have the dog spayed. Why leave it intact and then gripe when it gets pregnant?
Something else to consider with Scarlett67’s thought: The vet I work for charges more for spaying a dog that’s pregnant or in heat. The surgery takes longer and is a lot more bloody. Spaying before an accident happens will save both hassle and money.