This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosse from Bloomberg Radio.
The pushback was swift after marilynd Federal Judge Deborah Boardman sentence Sophie Roski, charged as Nicholas John Rosky, to just over eight years in prison. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised the Justice Department would appeal what she called a woefully insufficient sentence, which was well below the minimum thirty years the government had asked for. Other conservative critics of the
light punishment doesn't send a strong enough message. Amid the rise in threats to federal judges, and Senator Ted Cruz, while decrying the violence against judges quote particularly fueled by rhetoric by irresponsible politicians, criticized the judge and called for her impeachment.
A left wing Biden appointed judge sentence this attempted murderer, this attempted assassin to just eight years. The Department of Justice asked for thirty years, and that Judge Downward departed by twenty two years. Why because this left wing judge said that the attempted murderer was transgender.
In fact, during the day long sentencing hearing, Judge Boardman spent two hours explaining all the factors that led her to the eight year sentence, primarily the fact that Rosky phoned authorities from the scene, reported the incident, and turned herself in. My guest is former Marilyn Federal Judge Paul Grimm, director of the Baltch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School.
Did it seem like Judge Boardman anticipated that there would be reaction to her sentencing and an appeal, considering that she spent two hours explaining the factors that went into it.
I will say this, Judge Portman is very diligent and enormously experienced judge. She also spent a considerable amount of time as a federal public defender in the District of Maryland, and so she has done hundreds of sentencings, both as a lawyer and as a judge. So she really knows what goes into what's required under the sentencing guidelines and
the Statute eighteen US Code three five five three. So she knew in advance, of course, because the government filed a sentencing memorandum and the defense filed a sentencing memorandum
that the sentencing guidelines. Because of the way in which the case was charged with a terrorism connection enhancement, that the guidelines were thirty years to life, and she issued a sentence of eight years, perhaps a little bit more than eight years, So she knew that that was either a significant departure or a variance below what the guideline
recommendation was. And knowing how careful and thorough Judge Boardman is, I'm sure she expected that if the government thought the sentence was too lenient, that there might be an appeal. And I'm sure that she wanted to make sure that she had dotted all of her eyes and crossed all of her teas in explaining and complying with both the procedural requirements of the statute, which means that you calculated the guidelines correctly. There was a challenge if there was
an objection to the calculation of the guidelines. And part of the procedural requirement for a judge to sentence is that the judge goes through the pre sentence report acknowledges what the parties submitted. If there are any challenges by one side or the other, the rules on those gives the rationale for that. You know, Judge Boardman is an active judge. So during the presentation by the government and
the presentation by the defense. She likely asked questions. So Judge Bourbman is the kind of judge who's going to let everyone who wants to be heard be heard fully. She'll listen respectfully and carefully. She'll ask questions, She'll make sure she understands what the arguments are, and then she
will calculate the guidelines. She would then do what the guidelines require is to analyze the sentencing factors that are set forth for a judge to consider under eighteen US Code three five five three.
Tell us about some of those sentencing factors.
There are many of them. So you have to talk about the nature and circumstances of the offense, and she did, and she acknowledged it was a very serious offense. You have to look at what kind of a sentence would be respected by the public as being a sufficient sentence for the nature of the circums stances. Given the personal characteristics of the defendant. You have to consider what kind of a sentence would deter this particular defendant from committing
future crimes. And that's called specific deterrence. You have to consider general deterrence. What would deter members of the community from doing that given the number of threats against US judges that have been occurring for over well over a decade, but particularly in the last ten months, you know what kind of a sentence would be necessary to deter people
from making threats against judges serious offense. You have to talk about the history and characteristics of this particular defendant, whether they have any prior convictions, what kind of convictions those were, what type of offenses they were, And you know, at that point you have to consider certain factors that might be specific to the issues, such as mental health
issues or physical health issues of a particular defendant. You have to consider whether or not a sentence should include certain aspects that will assist the rehabilitation of a defendant, such as drug treatment, anger management, or and then when you've gone through all of those, you explain how you
ranked and evaluated each factor. This is, of course, comes after you've calculated the guidelines and made a ruling on the guidelines, and you've heard from everybody, and then the statute says that you are to issue a sentence which is sufficient, but not greater than necessary to accomplish the sentencing goals of eighteen US Code Section three five to five to three. So that's the procedural part. I'd be shocked if procedurally, Judge Boardman did not do all of
those steps with great detail. The substantive part is whether or not the judge, in announcing the sentence either overvalued or undervalued one particular factor over another.
That does seem to be where the appeal will likely be focused on, So tell us what that might look like.
So if a judge didn't say too much about deterrence but talked a lot about rehabilitation, then an appellate court might say, well, now, wait a minute, you gave too much emphasis to rehabilitation, not enough emphasis to deterrent or seriousness of the offense or the nature of punishment that would command respect within the public, and the appellate court will look at the sentence for both procedural and substantive correctness. There is a deferential review standard, and only if there's
been an abusive discretion will the appellate court overrule. So there's just a lot of moving pieces to a sentencing in any case in federal court, but particularly for something like this, there was a significant disagreement between what the defense said was an appropriate sentence and what the government was asking for the fact that she took the time
that she did. Suggest to me that she did each in every one of the things that she was required to do, and by that what I mean she she calculated the guidelines, she discussed what the party said, she resolved any disagreements. She analyzed each of the factors under eighteen US Code Section three five five to three. She explained the weight she was giving to each one. I would be surprised if there was a procedural deficiency in
what she said. If there is any significant issue on appeal, it might be more on the substantive one whether or not some of the factors that she gave weight to and discussed she gave excessive weight to those factors as opposed to other aspects of the sentencing statute. So that's likely to be an area that will be explored on appeal.
As far as appellet arguments, one would be, as you mentioned, abused her discretion by not properly balancing the sentencing factors. And one thing that stood out was that she gave credit to Roskie for having called the police after deciding not to carry out the crime. She told the nine
to eleven operators she needed psychiatric help. The judge said, in my seventeen years of experience in federal criminal law in the District of Maryland, as a public defender and as a judge, I have never heard of another criminal defendant doing that. Is that something that kind of determination that the prosecution might use on appeal?
Well, one of the things that you have to look at in terms of a proper sentencing under the sentencing regime is was there acceptance of responsibility? And clearly there was acceptance of responsibility. If a person, I mean, if you go to law enforcement and say, hey, I did this, I have mental health problems, I need help. I did this, I'm acknowledging it, and then pled guilty, those are important factors. Oftentimes the defendants don't plead guilty. They make the government
go to trial and prove the case. So acceptance of
responsibility is clearly an important factor. The fact that Judge Boardman said that in her seventeen years in criminal law in federal court that she had never seen another defendant do that was essentially tantamount to saying that in her seventeen years of experience, which is profound, that this was not just simply acceptance of responsibility and acknowledgment of guilt, but to a fairly extraordinary extent, And that might explain why it was if that factor weighed heavily on the
sentence that she gave, why she valued it and waited it so much. If the kind of acceptance of responsibility is hew half hearted. You know, if somebody says, well, I'm sorry that you didn't like the fact that this
clim was committed, that's not a sincere apology. If somebody doesn't plead guilty until after the government has had to respond to motions to dismiss, and after they filed emotion to suppress and it's been a hearing, and this hearing has been overruled, then the defend and that circumstances waited until every effort they could to try to knock out the crime was unsuccessful, and then and only then pled guilty.
You might characterize that as begrudgingly pleading guilty. And if she believed that this person was one of the most sincere in their acceptance of responsibility and did the most to not put the government to a lengthy investigation and prosecution and motions practice and all of that, then that might be something that she would comment on in order to explain why she gave that factor the weight that she did in deciding her sentence.
Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Judge Paul Grimm. We'll discuss the rise in threats to federal judges and the deterrent effect of sentences. You're listening to Bloomberg Marilyn. Federal judge Deborah Boardman sentenced the would be assassin of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to just over eight years
in prison. Sophie Roski, charged as Nicholas John Roski, was arrested near Cavanaugh's Maryland home in twenty twenty two after the leak of a draft opinion of the Supreme Court's opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion. During sentencing, Boardman gave Roski credit for having called police after deciding not to carry out the crime, saying that otherwise authorities may
have never known about the plot. Conservatives have seized on questions that the judge asked about treatment options for Roski in a male federal penitentiary as she's a transgender woman. I've been talking to former Maryland judge Paul Grimm, a
professor at Duke Law School. Threats against federal judges, as you mentioned, have risen dramatically, with this year on track to become a record uar for such threats, and the government here argued that a harsh sentence was necessary to deter further threats or attacks against judges or other public officials. What role does the impact of a sentence beyond the defendant have in a sentencing.
That's a great question. You know, the people who study criminal law, there's enough writing that if you stack them all the articles and the books one on top of another, would probably equal a pretty good sized skyscraper. You know. The theory of criminal sentencing that goes back decades and decades and decades is that what do you give a
criminal sentence to do? And there are multiple theories. One is you could give a sentence that will deter that particular defendant and other similar defendants from committing crimes of that nature in the future. One of it is to rebuild. Take the defendant, you sentenced them so that they have a period of imprisonment, and then you put things in place to make sure that when they finished that that they have the skills and the likely avenue to succeed
and be law abiding. That's certainly in the public interest. And then another one is is that you're just doing it to punish for retribution. So they are competing theories. Some people say, well, no, it shouldn't be this theory, it should be that theory. But there's a lot of debate about whether or not specific deterrence and general deterrence actually are effective in doing that. So let me give
you an example. If you have a crime that was committed in the heat of passion and this person's anger or hatred was inflamed and then they did it, there's a lot of research that suggests that the deterrence is not that great because if you're you know, if you're reasoning, you know the idea of that, well, you know, if I send this email threatening this judge, judge, maybe I'm going to get a thirty year sentence, so I won't do it. That's the theory. But why do people send
those emails? And one of the reasons why there's so many threats against judges is that for the last ten years at least, and specifically in the last ten months, there have been unprecedented amounts of threats against judges and the Martial Service. I think the last data that I saw was that as of September, there were over five hundred credible threats that the Marshall Service found against federal judges, and that somehow more than three hundred judges federal judges
have been threatened. You know, they're only about seven hundred federal judges in the entire judiciary, so three hundred have been threatened. Then that's almost half of the sitting judges have been threatened. Then you go back and say, well,
who's doing the threats? And when you see the kind of language that political figures and commentators have been using, the kind of language that they are accusing judges who are just simply trying to do their job of being traders or radical or extreme or unpatriotic or treason This if you look at footnote two of the opinion issued by the US district judge who dismissed the government's lawsuit against all the judges of the U S District Court
for the District of Maryland. In that the judge said, you know, in the last few months, since the beginning of the year, either public officials or representatives of public officials have accused federal judges of the following and listed about seven or eight of very extreme language used to describe federal judges and in very extreme ways, and found that it was essentially a concerted effort on the part
of the administration to do that. That's a finding of a federal judge in an actual case, and that was
a judge appointed by a Republican president. So what I'm saying is is that if the government as an entity is concerned about preventing threats against judges, and you're trying to find the most effective way of doing that, then you know, reasonable minds can disagree about whether having one thirty year sentence for a person with mental health who has no significant prior record of criminal activity is certainly violent activity with mental health issues, whether that's going to
deter or whether perhaps the administration is should stop making these personal, extraordinarily emotional attacks against judges if they disagree with the judges' rulings, which is going to be more effective in the long run. Well, you know, some people would say you need a belt and suspenders, do them both.
But the Department of Justice was serious about deterring threats against federal judges, then they would encourage the spokespeople within the Department of Justice, as well as others within the government, to stop using the kind of intemperate, incendiary language that has been used repeatedly in the last ten months to vilify and intimidate federal judges.
Judges have a lot of discretion in sentencing. So what does it take for a federal appellate court to reverse a judge's sentencing decision. I know, the Fourth Circuit did vacate a seventeen day time serve sentence that Judge Brinckema handed down. Now, that was a difference between a seventeen day time served sentence and the guidelines that call for sixteen years to nineteen years. And this case will also be decided by the Fourth Circuit. I mean, is it unusual to have a sentence reversed?
Well, let me put it this way, It's not unusual the appellate court if they do the two step analysis procedural and substantive, and they find that there was a failure in either one or the other. You know, if it's a procedural defect, then of course the judge didn't do what was required. If the judge does do all this required, but then the pell Court feels substantively that the judge gave too much credit on one factor but not another. You know that obviously in the one that
you made reference to with Judge Brikhama. Okay, so sixteen to nineteen and a half was the guidelines recommendation, and she gave seventeen days time served, and the fourth cicket said that was an abusive discretion. She resentenced and I think the re sentence was to like three years. Yeah, still a significant departure below the you know, sixteen to
nineteen year And remember these are guidelines. You know, they're not mandatory, and you had a United States Supreme Court say that if the guidelines were interpreted as mandatory, that there may be a separation of powers, violation of the Constitution, and in order to preserve the structure of the sentencing guidelines, they should be interpreted as discretionary. Discretion has to be
used in a way that's not abusive. But you know, Congress has a if they wanted to say that making a threat against a federal judge was punishable by a mandatory sentence of fifteen to twenty years, then they could certainly do that Congress has not done that, and so the way in which that sentencing of thirty years to life came out was a function of guidelines and certain
factors in that. And you know, even in the after a reversal, it doesn't mean that the judge lacks the discretion to be able to depart below what the guidelines recommendations are if they believe that a guideline sentence would be more than what's sufficient but no more than necessary to accomplish the overall goals of federal sentencing, the appellate court will be mindful of the you know, the nature
of this. It's not insignificant that Supreme Court justice was the one threatened, but you know, child court judges are getting threatened constantly, and I would say, how many of those five hundred plus threats are against Supreme Court justices as opposed to trial judges. There's just an extraordinary large number of these threats coming down the pike with language that is so intemperate from people who are in high positions in government, who have traditionally had more moderation in
the way in which they discussed this. So there's a lot of interest in this. The panel that gets it will, I'm sure do a very thorough job of going through it. I can tell you this, there will be plenty of appellate briefing by both the defense and the government, and there may even be anekas briefs by various groups or entities that think that they have an insight that would
help the court in deciding the appeal. You're right, this is a high profile case, and I suspect that George Boardman was aware that it was high profile from the get go, and that's probably why she was as careful as she was in her Roally.
This will be a closely watched appeal. Thank you so much, Judge grim that's former federal judge Paul Grimm of Duke Law School, coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. Pets are treated like children in divorces in New York, but not so in other areas of the law. I'm June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg, you may think of your dog or other pets as a cherished member of the family. After all, they often have designer clothes, special meals delivered, and toys that any kid would love.
But even though New York law has come a long way in recognizing pets as part of the family. When there's a divorce or an accident, they're still treated as property in the family will my guest is Suzanne, though a trust and a states lawyer. In most states, how are pets treated. Are they treated as personal property or something else?
For a long standing principles, pets have been treated as some form of personal property, and certainly New York pets are treated as tangible personal property. So I'm an a state's lawyer. I oftentimes special provisions for pets, but they're within the article that's generally covered tangible personal property that covers things like your furniture or valuable artwork or antiques. And I definitely do have clients to take offense to that.
But unfortunately, in New York, pets are personal property like you're furnishings. And that is the trend in most states is seeing pets as a form of personal property. But there's definitely aspects of law where that is changing. But it's changing in different aspects of state law, as opposed to a general change in the standing of pets in every aspect of state law. It's coming in patchwork sections of different states laws.
Susan tell Us about this landmark New York Supreme Court case that established that pet owners can recover emotional damages for the death of their pets as if they were part of their human family, but in certain limited circumstances.
A woman and her son were walking the sun's dog in a Neighbouringham, Brooklyn. They got to an intersection that contained her crosswalk and a stop sign, and the mom was actually holding the leash. So the mom is holding the leash, steps into the crosswalk, looks both sides, doesn't see anyone coming, steps into the crosswalk. Her adult son
is next to her, but she's holding the leash. They get more than halfway through the crosswalk when a vehicle crosses the stop sign without stopping, doesn't turn his turn signal on and turns directly into them, and the mom sees the car coming has enough time to at least turn around and attempt to get back to the sidewalk, but unfortunately, the dog is struck and killed by the
driver of the truck. So then a civil lawsuit, the mother sued the driver of the truck for civil damages, and her claims were for compensation because the dog was killed, for the cost of the dog and for veterinary care. But also the more interesting claim was she claimed the mom claimed emotional damages for negcellent infliction of emotional distress because she suffered having to watch her son's dog essentially
be negligently murdered in front of her. And the son also sued for negilent infliction of emotional distress because even though he wasn't holding the leash, he also had to see his dog be killed. So there is so not just for monetary damages for the dog's death builds, but also for the emotional damages of having to bear witness to the dog suffering.
So does that case where emotional damages for the pet owner in certain circumstances are recognized, does that change anything else or is it just as far as those particular circumstances.
Very limited holding and it only applies to torque cases where there's a civil claim for emotional damages relating to the death of a pet. And the holding of the court was very aware that this was a significant holding and that it would be cited by other states and potentially used in New York for the purposes, so the court made it only applicable and very very very limited circumstances. I think that was a reflection of realizing that it was changing past precedent and also not wanting to be
overturned on appeal. And also there was a lot, a lot of briefs filed by different pet organizations, some for the pet owner and some actually for the defendant, and some organizations you wouldn't have expected to be filing and for the defendant. So the judge in this case was trying to weigh all these different concerns, including public policy concerns, and that led to this very narrow holding.
Which organizations were against the pet owner recovering damages.
So the organizations against the pet owner recovering was actually the American Chemical Club, the New York State Veterinary Medical Society, the Animal Health Instituted, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the American Pet Pet Products Association,
and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. Because the concern expressed among those different organizations was that a holding in favor of the pet owner would lead to increased costs for that care or pet products, which would lead pen owners not to get services for pets and lead to increased that bills or pet insurance costs. So now that's often been a concern even when pet trust were first or first on the stage, and New York's pet trust statue did not actually lead to any of those things.
So before we get to pet trusts, let's talk about divorce because you often hear about couples fighting over who gets the dog or the cat or the bird. So what's the rule about who gets the pet in a divorce in New York.
That's a great question because New York has a new statue that was an acted in twenty twenty one that says a judge in a warning costoy of the family pet can actually take into account the best interests of the pet, just like an awarding custody of a child, the judge takes into account the best interests of the child.
And in the leading case in this area, the judge actually said pets are just like children for this purpose, and that's a significant statement, and the judge and the Diblas holding actually leaned on that statement in coming to this holding. So you see how the cases are evolving.
And the judge in Dublas actually said the law needs to evolve with the treatment of pets, and the Dablas judge cited statistics showing the growing importance of pets in our life, like how many more households today own pets compared to the past. But going back to divorce law, so now in New York divorce cases, when there's a pet involved in awarding coustody of the pet, you have to consider the pets best interest just like you would a child. And there's other states that have similar statutes,
like Alaska has a similar statute in custody cases. Actually, from Law Commission is taking this up and it's taking comments to decide whether to draft uniform legislation on awarding possession and custody of pets and family disputes. So that's how important a concern it is that even the Uniform Law Commission is considering taking it up right now.
So if it's considered in divorces, is it considered in a state after a person dies.
That's so interesting to me because I see so many parallels as I've been practicing trust in states for over twenty years now, and there's so many parallels between death and divorce. I mean, there's significant life milestones. And even though when I draft a will or a trust that essentially serves as a will, I don't contemplate explicitly constantly divorced. But when I'm representing someone who's been divorced, I often have to tie into a prenuptial or post natural agreement
certain contractual obligations. But even when I do a trust, I say, well, I'll leave this mentor's spouse if she's still my spouse at my death, and if she's not, then property goes a certain way. So the two events definitely are related. And as I was reading the cases about whether a pet is property and the Dubla's case is citing back to the divorce cases, you see similar concerns about do you consider the pet's best interests or do you consider the pet owner's best interests? Do you
consider the child's best interests? Who might the miner might be the main custodian of a sense of the pet? Do you consider the family relationships? Is paramount all these competing concerns, But those are the concerns when a pet owner dies too.
So is the law as far as wills the same as the law as far as divorce. Where pets are concerned.
It's very different. So a pet owner has very little options in terms of providing for her pet or his pet when he or she dies. The last piece of
legislation specifically addressing this was the pet trust. You recommended the state's Powers and Trust law to provide for a pet trust, where just like you can create a trust for your child and say, I want to set aside a certain pool of money that earmarked as just being for my child after I die, and I appoint a trustee to manage that pool of money and decide if and when my child will receive distributions from that trust, or the trust may pay expenses on behalf of my child.
Now you can do the same thing. You say, I'm going to set aside one hundred thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars in an account just for my pet, and then I name a trustee who can make distributions out of that pool of money just for my pet. Pet trust.
So, in other words, if someone comes to you and wants to draw up a will and wants to take care of his or her pet, you say we have to do a trust.
Is that that we don't often say it because to do a pet trust, in my mind, to do any kind of trust, you need a certain amount of money, and in my mind the minimums do a trust is around two hundred thousand dollars because I keep in mind the trust for a pet or a child doesn't come into being until after you, the person who wrote that the will is deceased to die. That trust is a separate income tax paying entity, so that means the trustee
has to found income tax returns every year. The trustee has to hire a financial advisor to invest the money for that trust to generate interests and dive an end income. So there's a lot of compliance that goes along with the formal trust arrangement, and there's people taking fees. The accountant who prepares income tax return is charging annual fee, the investment advisor who's investing it is charging annual fee. The trustee usually takes a commission for this work that
he's doing. So to actually prepare a trust, you need a decent amount of money to justify those annual fees, which in my mind is a minimum two hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand, and a lot of clients just don't have. They're envisioning leaving maybe ten twenty fifty thousand dollars for their pets. They're not envisioning two hundred thousand dollars or joining fifty thousand dollars. A yeah, yeah, So a pet trust, in my mind, is for my
high net worth clients. It's not for your average upper middle class families who are just seeking to make sure that a pet is provided for and that the level of care they provided will be provided for when they die. Sale trust is not that.
So what do you do for your clients or what can you do for your clients that don't have that money to make a pet trust?
So the alternative that I do for a lot of my clients is honestly, it's very rare that I draft a pet trust, but I represent a lot of behind networth individuals.
Is just a.
Simple naming of a pet caretaker, which is not a fiduciary role. I mean, the trustee of a pet trust is a fiduciary. That's the benefit of having a pet trust statute. If the trustee of the pet trust of sconds with the money or takes a distribution out and buys him or herself a new car. He or she can be held up in court and asked to put that money back into the trust can be personally surcharged.
That's the benefit of a trustee. It's a fiduciary obligation that carries legal risk and legal obligation.
What I do.
Instead is I name an informal caretaker for the pets that doesn't carry any of that enforcement that comes along with the true fiduciary. I have a dog, Norris, and I say, okay, I'm going to give I have two dogs, one of them is Norris. I'm going to give Norris to my friend Michael. He's going to be the caretaker, Norris's caretaker, and I'm going to say that as long as Michael agrees take custy of Norris after my death, I'll give Michael twenty thousand dollars that I wish for
him to use towards Norris's care. But that's a wish right If I die and Michael takes Norris and then instead of using the ten thousand dollars to maintain Norris's Farmer's Dog subscription and the organic treats that I buy him and the private vet, they take him to that the dog insurance I maintained only covers half of the bills. Michael might take Norris and buy some cheap food and use a free clinic and not maintain anywhere near the
level of care. That was the purpose of that twenty thousand dollars, and there's no way of stopping that.
What would be a solution to this disparate treatment of pets for one reason and not for another?
Of course, there could a global standard of treating pets's humans and then saying every law has been interpret in under that lens. But I don't see that. So I see a continuation of piecemeal legislation. And for the trust and State's purpose, I see an amendment to New York's law, much like we have the Uniform Transferred to Miners Act.
I see an amendment like that, some type of transfer to Pets Act, so that for individuals who don't have two hundred, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to put in a pet trust, they can put in a pet custodial account. Because custodians, when you put say fifty thousand dollars, you go to city Bank, you say, I want to put fifty thousand dollars in a custodial account for my minor child when they're fourteen, and it stays in that
coustoleic account until they're twenty one. You similarly don't have two hundred and fifty thousand to put a trust for your child. This is a less expensive alternative that banks offer to trust for your children. I would like to see the same thing for a pet, for a dog or a cat, and that way you can name a custodian and the custodian is bound to the same fiduciary
role that a trustee is. So I'd like to see legislation that creates a custodial account for pets where the custodian can be taken to court and bound to return any money that is not actually used for the pets care and support in the same manner that you expressed in your letter of intent you wanted the pets to be cared for. I see the arguments coming that legislation
like this can end up increase in liability. I see the same organizations that I mentioned objecting saying this can cause increases and services, and but that argument never bears out. We've seen it agose under which the custodian can be held legally accountable. We've never seen those increases in pet costs.
Thanks so much, Suzanne. That's trust in a state's attorney, Susanne Thaw. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple podcast, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg