Couple Sues Airline Over Lost Cat

S A C R A M E N T O, Calif., Aug. 29, 2002 -- In what's being called the largest lawsuit of its kind, a couple is suing Air Canada for $5 million, claiming the airline lost one of their five cats.

Lori Learmont and Andrew Wysotski took an Air Canada flight last August, when they moved from Oshowa, Ontario, to Fairfield, Calif. Their cats had to travel in plastic crates in the plane's cargo hold.

When the couple arrived at San Francisco International Airport, they discovered one of the crates had broken open, according to the suit filed Aug. 16 in Superior Court in San Francisco. Fu, their 14-year-old tabby, was missing.

‘They’re Our Babies’

Flying their cats to San Francisco, they couple said, was an ordeal from the beginning. Learmont, 37, said they put the animals in regulation plastic crates.

"When it came time to leaving our cats, it was like a little conveyorbelt like, you know, at the grocery store. And my stomach was in knots," she told KXTV in Sacramento.

"I told the guy, 'Please take care of them. You know they're our babies.' "

Wysotski, 37, said that when the couple arrived at the San Francisco airport, they went to the baggage claim at about 1 a.m. to retrieve their pets. They noticed that all five of the animals' crates were severely banged up. One carrier was broken, and Fu was gone.

He said airline employees, after some discussion, told the couple that when baggage handlers took the cats off the plane, Fu's crate rolled down a ramp on its wheels, then crashed open.

Learmont was allowed to search for the missing animal for "seven minutes," but airline employees would not let him go onto the tarmac to help, Wysotski said.

Learmont and Wysotski say they complained to the airline for months, but were treated poorly from the start. Air Canada was reluctant to let them put up posters describing the lost cat, Wysotski said.

"It was like pulling teeth even to be allowed to put up a flier. They said the paper would be caught in the jet propellers " he told ABCNEWS.com. "To get any cooperation, even, you had to threaten and fight."

A spokeswoman for Air Canada told The Associated Press that because of the litigation it "will confine its comments to legal proceedings."

They Want to Change the Law

Wysotski, an artist, says that under the law, animals are treated as cargo. He said he and Learmont, who works for a company selling pallets that carry cargo, had trouble finding an attorney who would even take the case.

They have now hired animal rights lawyer David Blatte, who represented San Francisco couple Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel in their fight to save Hera, one of two Presa Canario dogs that attacked and killed lacrosse coach Diane Whipple in front of her San Francisco apartment. Both dogs were destroyed, and Knoller and Noel were sentenced to four years in prison each for involuntary manslaughter.

Wysotski doesn't expect to win a lot of money in the suit, which alleges Air Canada, its cargo-handling company and San Francisco International Airport personnel are guilty of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, fraud and false advertising.

"It's unlikely we're going to get more than $7 per pound" of the cat's weight, he said.

Both Wysotski and Learmont, who have been companions for seven years, say they hope their suit will force airlines to change the way they treat animals.

"It's not about money," Wysotski said.

"They're our children, the most important assets to us," Learmont told KXTV. "They're kids."

ABCNEWS.com's Dorian Benkoil and reporter Deborah Hoffman of ABC affiliate KXTV in Sacramento contributed to this report.