Maryland’s highest court further cut the damages awarded to a Glen Burnie family after an Anne Arundel County police officer shot and killed their dog, reducing the initial six-figure sum down to $7,500.

After Officer Rodney Price shot and killed his dog, former Glen Burnie resident Michael Reeves sued the county in 2015, outlining the economic impact the Chesapeake retriever’s death had on him and his sons. A jury awarded the Reeves family $1.26 million in damages, including money for grief and lost wages in the fallout of Vern’s death.

Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Mark Crooks cut that judgment down to $207,500 soon after, arguing damages sought against a government body were capped at $200,000 per claim when the incident occurred.

Monday’s decision slashes the money the Reeves family will see to just $7,500, as a majority of the panel of judges determined state law at the time of the shooting limited economic damages to $7,500 and does not provide for compensation beyond the cost of the pet and veterinary bills. The law has since been revised to lift the cap to $10,000.

Court of Appeals Judge Michele D. Hotten, in her dissent, argued the state’s highest court missed an opportunity to correct an anomaly in Maryland law, which allows for unlimited damages awarded for destruction of inanimate possessions but only $10,000 for the wrongful death of a beloved pet, as well as acknowledge the “dignity” of a pet as more than “just living beings.”

In 2014, Price arrived in the Reeves’ neighborhood to investigate leads on a burglary that occurred the night before. He approached the Reeves’ house and noticed the lights were on and the door open. As he paused in the driveway to take notes, Vern barked and came running.

He jumped up on Price, according to court documents, putting his paws on Price’s arm. Price told the jury he felt threatened and shot the dog to defend himself. A 2014 internal investigation within the police department found the dog was attacking Price, and thus his use of force was justified. But a jury disagreed. Instead, they found Price acted with “gross negligence” and violated the Reeves’ civil rights under the Maryland constitution. Monday’s decision upheld the gross negligence finding.

Both parties appealed the case in 2018 to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which upheld Crooks’ ruling. The county appealed again in 2019 to the Maryland Court of Appeals and argued that case in September 2020, said county attorney Phil Culpepper. Arguments were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Culpepper said the court “agreed it’s up to the legislature to change the law,” he said.

Cary Hansel, attorney for the Reeves family, said the opinion has two rays of hope: one Hotten’s dissent calling for the recognition of the value of pets as more than property and another in the court’s unwillingness to overturn prior case law in deciding this case.

The opinion sites another wrongful death lawsuit regarding a pet, Brooks v. Jenkins, which awarded damages based on constitutional violations. The jury in the Reeves’ case did find Price violated the family’s constitutional rights but did not award damages on those counts. “What I’m scared to death of is that people will not know that there is relief,” Hansel said. “The court in distinguishing that Jenkins case made it clear that in cases where the claim is constitutional in nature, the recovery there is undisturbed.”

Hansel said he intends to move forward with additional lawsuits regarding the wrongful death of a pet.

Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera, writing for the majority, argued the statute governing compensation after the wrongful death of a pet expressly limits the monetary damages available, unlike other Maryland laws governing the wrongful death of people, which do allow for damages related to both economic and emotional impact.

In examining the Maryland Wrongful Death Act, which governs how family members can be compensated after a loved one dies, Barbera also noted the statute caps the amount of non-economic damages a plaintiff can seek. “Mr. Reeves’ reading of the statute would allow, for example, for the recovery of millions of dollars in uncapped noneconomic damages in a case involving veterinary malpractice, while noneconomic damages in a medical malpractice case remain capped,” she wrote. “To read [the law governing wrongful death of a pet] in this way would produce absurd results.”

A group of veterinary organizations filed a friend of the court brief in the case, arguing that allowing for uncapped non-economic damages in the death of a pet would open up veterinarians to malpractice suits seeking unlimited amounts of money and thus pass the cost of the liability on to pet owners.

Such a policy argument falls to the Maryland General Assembly, not the courts, to debate and decide, Barbera wrote.

Hotten argued in her dissent that various Maryland lawmakers are already on the record pointing out the contradiction in Maryland law, which allows unlimited damages for the destruction of property but limited damages for the death of a pet. Former Sen. Bobby Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, spoke to the paradox in 2017 when the General Assembly changed the law to raise the cap on damages from $7,500 to $10,000.

Legislators did not go as far as removing the cap, however, because they acknowledged a right to compensation for emotional distress established by a previous court case, Hotten wrote. “I would have interpreted the legislative history of [the law governing wrongful death of a pet] as supporting an expansion, not restriction, of a plaintiff’s right to recover emotional damages for grossly negligent harm to a pet,” she wrote.