Legal Defeat, PR Victory: How the San Diego Humane Society Spun a Court Rebuke Into a Win

Mandated policy changes don’t usually spark celebrations—unless you control the narrative.

In the immediate aftermath of a closely watched court ruling scrutinizing its Community Cat Program, the San Diego Humane Society (SDHS) wasted no time launching a public relations campaign. A press release declared a “favorable final decision” and a “resounding endorsement,” with CEO Gary Weitzman hailing the outcome as validation of their “lifesaving” work. But the actual ruling paints a far more complex—and troubling—picture.

Far from affirming SDHS’ past practices, Judge Katherine Bacal found that the organization's former intake protocols were unlawfully narrow, resulting in the release of cats with clear signs of ownership. It was only after SDHS revised those protocols—under legal pressure and in the midst of litigation—that the court deemed the program compliant with state law. This was not a vindication. It was a judicial intervention that compelled reform.

Mastering the Message, Dodging the Truth

This effort to rebrand a legal correction as a public relations victory is not an isolated incident, but part of a familiar pattern for SDHS. As detailed in Animal Politics’ earlier reporting, the organization has repeatedly relied on marketing sophistication to dazzle supporters and deflect critics, often prioritizing image over substantive accountability. The court’s decision, and SDHS’ response to it, offer a case study in how organizational spin can obscure the realities facing the most vulnerable animals in our communities.

This strategy is not unique to SDHS. Like Best Friends Animal Society, the organization has mastered the art of messaging— using emotional appeals, threats, and carefully curated success narratives to drown out legitimate concerns. In doing so, SDHS attempts to have its cake and eat it too: celebrating reforms it made only under legal duress while glossing over the court’s finding that its earlier policies were unlawful. Both groups trade heavily on the language of “lifesaving,” even when their programs fall short of protecting the very animals they claim to serve.

San Diego Humane Society has its cake and eats it too—while the animals wait outside.

A Mixed Verdict for Cats: What the San Diego Ruling Means for the Future of Animal Sheltering

In a decision that animal advocates across California have been anxiously awaiting, the San Diego Superior Court issued its final ruling in the long-running legal challenge against SDHS’ controversial Community Cat Program. The result? A nuanced opinion that forced meaningful change but fell short of the sweeping protections many had hoped the court would affirm for stray and abandoned cats.

The lawsuit, brought by the Pet Assistance Foundation and fellow advocates Terence Higgins and BJ Withall, accused SDHS of systemically abandoning friendly, healthy, and potentially owned cats by turning them away or returning them to the streets under the guise of a lifesaving strategy. The plaintiffs argued this practice violated state laws against abandonment and circumvented shelters’ legal duty to take charge of animals in need.

The decision highlights a fundamental tension in animal sheltering: how to manage finite resources without compromising the legal and ethical duty to protect every animal. It challenges whether “no-kill” philosophies—as defined by The Consortium (Best Friends Animal Society, ASPCA, et al.) and their 90% live-release metric—are compatible with sheltering mandates. As I argued in In Defense of No-Kill, success isn’t just about lives spared—it’s about the integrity of the systems meant to protect them.

The Background

For years, SDHS has operated a Community Cat Program (CCP) modeled on the increasingly popular trap-neuter-return (TNR) approach. Under the CCP, healthy free-roaming cats brought to the shelter by residents are evaluated, sterilized, vaccinated, and then returned to the outdoors—regardless of whether they are social, friendly, or possibly owned.

Critics allege that this policy led to the mass return of cats who should have been given refuge and a chance at adoption. Plaintiffs sought a court order requiring SDHS to admit all such cats and halt the release of any animal not clearly feral or not returned to a known, registered caretaker.

The Arguments

The legal arguments were sharply drawn. Plaintiffs asserted that SDHS abandoned animals in violation of California Penal Code § 597s and failed its legal duty under Civil Code § 1816(c) to take charge of abandoned animals brought to its doors. They claimed SDHS was using its Community Cat Program to sidestep these obligations by redefining socialized, potentially owned cats as “community cats,” and denying them shelter based on behavior or lack of paperwork.

SDHS countered that it was not legally required to admit cats without verifiable proof of ownership. They defended the CCP as a humane, evidence-based strategy that helped manage limited shelter space and prevent euthanasia. They also argued that sociability wasn’t a legally valid way to determine whether a cat was owned or should be sheltered.

What the Court Ruled

Judge Katherine Bacal’s decision walks a careful line—disappointing those who wanted a full repudiation of SDHS’ approach, but nonetheless mandating significant policy reform.

Here are the key points:

The Limits of Friendliness

The court declined to require SDHS to admit all “friendly” cats or restrict releases to registered caretakers, ruling that sociability is not a legally relevant factor in determining abandonment under California law.

This means that even highly social cats—those clearly accustomed to human interaction—can be legally released if they lack specific indicators of ownership like a microchip, collar, or signs of vet care.

The implication is stark: shelters are not obligated to protect animals simply because they appear to be someone’s pet. Under current law, behavior doesn’t matter—only paperwork does.

Narrow Intake Protocols Were Illegal

The court held that SDHS’ prior requirement for “verifiable proof of ownership” was unlawfully restrictive. By demanding hard evidence—like registered microchips or documented owners—SDHS excluded cats that showed clear signs of prior ownership, such as being sterilized without an ear-tip or having an unregistered chip.

The implication is significant: shelters cannot use rigid intake policies to turn away animals that, by law, must be sheltered. The ruling clarifies that objective signs of ownership—however incomplete—must now trigger a legal duty to admit the animal.

Revised Protocols Are Now Lawful

At first glance, the court’s rulings on sociability and intake standards may seem in tension—it found that friendliness alone does not require intake, yet also struck down SDHS’ prior requirement for verifiable ownership. But the distinction is clear: behavior isn’t enough—but objective signs of ownership are.

A cat may be friendly and still legally returned to the field, but any reasonable indicator of ownership—such as a microchip (even unregistered), sterilization without an ear-tip, a collar, or an indentation in the coat where a collar was recently worn, signs of recent vet care, or credible information from a finder—now triggers a legal duty to admit the cat.

During litigation, SDHS adopted these new protocols, which the court ultimately approved as compliant with California law. It is that court-mandated compliance SDHS now celebrates as a victory—despite being forced to make the changes by the very ruling they claim validated them. At SDHS, irony is taking a victory lap around a court order.

Kittens Deserve Special Protection

The court emphasized the vulnerability of kittens and found SDHS’ prior policy too restrictive. The revised protocol now requires the admission of all kittens under 12 weeks, and mandates staff err on the side of sheltering kittens up to 6 months old unless they are clearly able to survive on their own.

Preserving the Purpose of TNR

Importantly, the court did not reject TNR programs outright. Instead, it drew a necessary legal line—upholding the release of truly unowned, free-roaming, feral cats while prohibiting shelters from using TNR as a loophole to abandon socialized or formerly owned animals. This distinction is critical: the ruling helps preserve TNR’s original purpose—reducing feral cat populations humanely—without allowing shelters to offload their legal and moral responsibilities by co-opting this important program.

What It Means

The ruling is not a precedent in the legal sense because it was issued by a trial court and not an appellate court. Consequently, it cannot be cited in other jurisdictions. However, it does set a powerful factual example of how courts may interpret abandonment law in the context of community cat programs. It draws a clear line between responsible TNR and unlawful evasion of sheltering duties.

The decision also exposes a fundamental tension in modern animal sheltering: how to manage population and resource constraints without sacrificing the moral and legal duty to protect each individual animal. It forces shelters to adopt a more nuanced intake approach—one that moves beyond simplistic checklists and reaffirms the legal obligation to honestly assess ownership in context.

Reflections

As someone who has spent decades in the trenches of animal sheltering, I can say this decision lands in a frustrating middle ground. It affirms key principles: shelters can’t arbitrarily deny intake; signs of ownership matter; kittens need protection. But it also upholds a model that allows shelters wide discretion to continue releasing cats—many of whom, in practice, may still be lost pets, recently abandoned, or simply too friendly to survive on their own.

What stands out most in the aftermath, however, is SDHS’ response. Rather than acknowledge the court’s intervention and the reforms it compelled, the organization doubled down on its PR narrative, seeking to transform a legal correction into a public relations victory.

The attempt to rebrand a legal rebuke as validation mirrors a growing trend in the animal welfare world: performative transparency—the appearance of openness—coupled with institutional denial and deflection of responsibility. Like Best Friends Animal Society, SDHS has weaponized marketing and messaging—framing any challenge as an attack on “lifesaving,” and repackaging court-mandated reforms as if they were visionary achievements.

Moving Forward

For those who care about transparency and accountability in animal welfare, this episode is a stark reminder: behind every polished press release, the real story often demands a closer look.

For those of us working to reform these programs, the ruling is a tool—not a triumph. It offers guidance for advocates in other cities, providing both a roadmap for legal challenges and a cautionary tale about the limitations of litigation.

Progress, in animal welfare as in law, is rarely absolute. But this ruling—however mixed—is a step forward. It reminds us that protecting animals is not just about saving lives, but about respecting the unique vulnerability of every creature brought to our care. And for those creatures, what we call a “mixed verdict” can be the difference between providing shelter and abandonment.

The real work begins now: ensuring that this ruling leads to meaningful change on the ground, not just in courtrooms or press releases, and that shelters nationwide uphold their legal and moral duties to every animal in their care.

Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, City of Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.

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