- Considering it’s a case of pet theft, this court case had a surprising outcome.
It always sucks when somebody steals something that’s yours. It smarts twice as much, though, when a living being you’re attached to get stolen.
For instance, it could be your cat.
That’s theft that was at the heart of a recent strange court case in Switzerland. It involves a retired woman who started feeding her neighbor’s cat without asking them for permission.
Over the following months, the whole thing became about more than just feeding. The woman went so far as to modify her home to make it more easily accessible for the cat.
Consequently, the cat started spending more and more time at the woman’s house than in her own home. Eventually, his real owner sued their neighbor for essentially stealing her cat.
In the eyes of the law, the case was a pretty clear-cut case of personal property theft. However, in the courtroom, the two women reached a surprising settlement.
The original voluntarily relinquished ownership of the cat, and he now resides legally at the retired woman’s home. Perhaps this was the best outcome for the cat — considering he had clearly already moved over in his kitty heart.
Here, Kitty-kitty
The events center around a cat called Leo. He, and his feuding owners, live in Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city in the north-central part of the country.
As far as we could find out, Leo never had issues with his original owner. That, however, changed in the fall of last year.
According to the original owner, her neighbor — a 68-year-old retiree — started giving food to Leo some 10 months ago. Whether she fed him more or the food was of better quality, we don’t know.
What we do know is that Leo liked it more.
Slowly but surely, Leo started spending more and more time around the neighbor instead of his owner. Soon enough, it became clear that the neighbor wasn’t just giving him random snacks.
At some point, she even installed a cat flap in her door, so Leo could come and go freely. It was pretty clear that she wanted to keep the cat.
And Leo was happy to oblige her. He started showing up at home ever more rarely, and when he did, he certainly wasn’t hungry and ignored the meals his real owner had prepared for him.
Stop Feeding My Cat!
Now, Leo’s owner wasn’t about to let her cat get stolen without doing anything about it. She repeatedly told the neighbor to stop giving food to her cat.
When spoken word proved useless, the woman sent the neighbor a written notice. That was to start building a paper trail for future action in case she didn’t stop feeding Leo.
She didn’t. So, once Leo essentially stopped coming home, his owner filed a criminal complaint against her neighbor.
After all, she had basically stolen the cat.
The public prosecutor saw things the same way as Leo’s original owner. And so, the neighbor was ordered to pay Leo’s owner 800 Swiss francs (around $950), while also receiving a suspended fine of 3,600 francs (almost $4,300).
Yet, the neighbor refused both to pay the fines and to relinquish Leo back to his owner. With that, the cat’s rightful owner sued the neighbor.
Surprise Settlement
In early May, the two neighbors appeared before the Zurich District Court with their lawyers. The session wasn’t open to the public, although people were certainly interested in the outcome, as the case had made headlines in Switzerland.
Now, on paper, the case should’ve quickly been ruled in favor of Leo’s owner. Although giving food to someone else’s cat isn’t any kind of offense under Swiss law, doing so systematically may well be.
You see, Switzerland considers cats to be their owners’ personal property. As such, luring them away with food and keeping them would, in nine out of ten cases, be considered unlawful appropriation.
Basically, it’s comparable to commandeering someone’s car.
However, the neighbors emerged from the court with a surprising solution. It turned out that they had reached a settlement.
Leo’s original owner withdrew her criminal complaint and relinquished her legal ownership of the cat. In other words, Leo was now legally the neighbor’s cat.
Local media hasn’t reported why the women came to this decision. Perhaps the retiree had such a sad reason for appropriating Leo that his original owner relented.
Or perhaps they figured that trying to herd to cat back to his previous home just wasn’t worth the effort.