Watch: Advanced Lemon Laws & Contracts

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Transcript

Annabel Maley [0:03 What is a Lemon Law?] A Lemon Law is… if you think about cars (which is, I think, where the first laws were), and you buy a car, and it doesn’t look like it should, you call it a lemon. So that’s where that terminology comes from. I think that probably most breeders and most consumers have no idea that the puppy Lemon Laws are out there. You have to be aware of it. It’s going to be there to protect the consumer so that they have some guarantee that what they are getting is what they are getting. In Virginia now, it’s a misdemeanor—I wish it was a Class 1 misdemeanor—to lie or misrepresent an animal that you’re selling. If, for instance, it’s supposed to be able to be registered, then it needs to actually be able to be registered or even if you register it or provide the paperwork. You have to give it an immunization record that has to be accurate to the best of your knowledge. All those kind of things are what goes into these laws. They all differ. So you have to be aware of what your law says. And then you have to be aware of changes that might be made to it every time the legislature is in session. As you all know, that’s always a dangerous time. There are 22 states that have pet purchase protection laws. It tells you what states they are and gives you a little table that shows the amount of time that remedy is available. All of these laws are going to limit the amount of time that a consumer can go back to the breeder or the seller and say, “Hey, there’s something wrong with this dog.” It would be ridiculous to, five years later, say, “Hey, my dog is sick now. I need a refund.” Generally, they’re meant for 10 days to 2 weeks for health issues, like having parvo or something like that. And then a year or maybe 2 years for congenital defects. That is, of course, a reason for people who are breeding dogs—and everybody who’s part of the Good Dog community would be doing this—because these laws are in effect in some states, we really need to be on top of them to protect ourselves and for the health of our animals. 

[3:10] The other thing is what the remedies are. For instance, Arizona says, “Return for reimbursement of purchase price or replacement and reimbursement for reasonable veterinary fees or keep the animal and get reimbursed for veterinary bills but not to exceed the purchase price.” And then they tell you whether there’s an enforcing agency. Most of the time, the person is going to have to file a suit in court. I noticed that in Connecticut, the Department of Agriculture will enforce it. In Arkansas, the Department of Health will enforce it. So it depends on the state. 

[3:57 Do Lemon Laws supersede what is in a puppy contract?] That is going to vary state by state. My advice would be to assume that you cannot contract out of your state law. You may be able to in some states. But I think it’s just safer to assume that you can’t. What I did for years was I had a part of my contract that basically tracks the Virginia code section in the original bill passed in Virginia. I’ve noticed that puppy buyers’ eyes kind of glaze over when they read that part. I tell them that’s part of our state law. That’s why I have that there.

[4:47 What advice do you have for breeders when it comes to contracts with their puppy buyers?] I think that it’s best to have full disclosure in anything you do. That way, you’ll know everybody’s on the same page. I think if you are both on the same page, you’re less likely to have problems down the road with enforcement. I’ve had friends who are breeders tell me it’s not important to have a contract, it’s not enforceable, blah blah blah. I think if it’s well-crafted, and if you’re careful, and if the person knows and understands what’s in it before they ever sign it, then that won’t be as big of an issue as it is for some people.

[5:28 What does it mean to have a “governing law” for your contract, and why is it important?] You can determine in your contract what law is going to go in that contract. In my contract, for instance, I say that the laws of Virginia govern. I also say that any disputes are going to be resolved in my local courts. I don’t want to have to go to France, for instance, to resolve a dispute.

[5:57 What advice do you have for breeders when they are reading their state laws?] It’s really important for people to look at that definition section and see what parts of the law are going to apply to them. In the beginning of our Comprehensive Animal Care Act, the very first section is definitions. It’s very important that breeders look at that and see where they fit in in their state’s law in the definitions because that can be very different from state to state. So, in Virginia, they define a commercial dog breeder as “anyone during any 12-month period who maintains 30 or more adult female dogs for the purpose of breeding.” But, you know, some state might classify that as 10 dogs or even 5 dogs. You don’t know. And you need to know that. The laws in Virginia that apply to a commercial dog breeder are much different than the ones that apply to what they’re now calling “a dealer.” In the original acts, it was called a “hobby breeder.” But now they’re calling a dealer “any person who, in the regular course of business, for compensation or profit, buys, sells, transfers, exchanges, or barters canine animals.” That’s something, too, that breeders should understand. We often don’t really make money because it costs so much to raise puppies and do all the testing we do and showing and everything. But this says compensation. So whether you’ve made a profit or not, if you’ve been compensated in some way for it, then you’d be classified as a dealer under the Virginia law. Later in the same definition, it defines a kennel as “any establishment in which 5 or more canines and felines or hybrids are kept for the purpose of breeding, hunting, training, renting, buying, boarding, or showing.” In Virginia, you only have to have 5. It doesn’t define whether you can have a total of 5 animals (some of them dogs, some of them cats) and be considered a kennel, but anyway, that’s not very many.