On the day of the auction, fair officials refused to consider the family’s requests to take the goat off the auction block. Cedar was sold the same day for $902, with the fair taking a $63 share.
A California sheriff’s department will pay $300,000 to settle claims that deputies forced a family to auction a “young girl’s beloved pet goat” at a county fair, culminating in its sale and eventual slaughter.
According to The New York Times, plaintiff Jessica Long bought the goat for her 9-year-old daughter so that the girl could participate in a 4-H program. The girl, identified in court documents by the initials “E.L.,” had raised the goat with the expectation that it would someday go to auction. However, E.L. became attached to the goat, which she named either Cedar or Cedes, and began to express doubts about selling it at the Shasta District Fair in Northern California.
E.L. “raised Cedar, bonded with him, loved him like a pet, and ultimately wanted to save him,” said Advancing Law for Animals attorney and co-director Vanessa Shakib, who represented the family.
On the day of the auction, fair officials refused to consider the family’s requests to take the goat off the auction block. Cedar was sold the same day for $902, with the fair taking a $63 share.
Although Long and her family offered to pay the fair the money that it was owed—all the way up to the auction price—officials refused to withdraw the sale, going so far as to threaten pressing charges for criminal theft.
As the dispute escalated, Long took Cedar to a farm 200 miles away, where she hoped the goat would remain safe. Nonetheless, two Shasta County sheriff’s deputies drove the distance, seizing the goat and compelling its sale.
Although it remains unclear who asked deputies to Cedar from the Sonoma County farm, Shakib says that fair and government officials have spent the past two years engaging in “obstructionist discovery tactics” designed to suppress information and avoid answering questions about the goat’s fate.
“Years later, this case still has several unanswered questions,” Shakib said.
Shasta County officials, for their part, deny any and all wrongdoing.
“The County did nothing wrong, but we recognize the risk and cost involved in going to trial, and so we agreed to settle the case,” attorney Christopher Pisano told the Bee in a statement. “We are happy to be moving on and putting this case behind us.”
Ryan Gordon, the director of Advancing Law for Animals, has since said that Cedar’s buyer never ended up paying anything toward their $902 bid.
“They can never get justice for Cedar, he’s gone,” Gordon and Shakib said in a statement. “But this [settlement] is a good first step.”
The family’s share of the $300,000 settlement, Gordon said, will be held in a trust until Long becomes a legal adult.
Sources
After deputies took her pet goat to be butchered, girl wins $300,000 from Shasta County
California County to Pay $300,000 Over Butchering of Girl’s Goat
Girl wins $300K settlement over seizure and slaughter of pet goat
Shasta County will pay $300K to settle slaughter of girl’s pet goat seized by sheriff’s deputies
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