An untitled proposal to amend Oregon’s Animal Cruelty statute was posted by the Oregon Secretary of State on November 14, 2018 and is available on its website. The proposed amendment does not appear to have been formally introduced as a bill in the Oregon legislature. The amendments, if enacted would permit anyone to file a civil action “for the protection and humane treatment of animals.” By anyone, as the amendment provides, “plaintiff shall include any person even if the person does not have any legal interest or possessory lights in an animal.” The amendment also provides for temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction upon the filing of a verified complaint, and if the plaintiff requests it and plaintiff’s agent could be permitted “unrestricted access to the premises where the animal is located to evaluate, monitor, and provide minimum care to the animal.” And “if it appears on the face of the complaint that the condition giving rise to the violation of O.R.S. §167.305-390 requires the animal to be removed from the defendant, then it shall be proper for the court in the order or injunction to allow the plaintiff to take possession of the animal and provide minimum care.” Keep in mind that this is all without any evidentiary hearing of any sort, but simply based on the face of the complaint, in a suit filed by someone who, until after the complaint was filed may have had possession or first-hand knowledge of the conditions in which the animal was housed or its physical status. But the amendment does not stop there. It would require a defendant to post bond within ten days after a court allowed a plaintiff to take possession of the animal, and if not posted, “the court shall deem the animal to have been abandoned.”...MORE
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