BILL ANALYSIS
By: Laubenberg
Juvenile Justice & Family Issues
Committee Report (Substituted)
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Currently, the Family Code does not openly allow judges to include pets in protective orders. According to studies, abusers often use pets to hold power over their human victims, and to prevent them from leaving abusive situations.
In the most direct sense, allowing judges to issue protective orders that include pets would provide a tool for the protection of animals.
However, because of the close link between human and pet abuse, pet protection orders would ultimately give judges another tool with which to protect humans in dangerously abusive relationships.
C.S.H.B.1547 allows a court to issue a protective order prohibiting a party from removing a pet, companion animal or assistance animal from the possession of a person named in the order. Additionally, C.S.H.B.1547 provides that it is a Class B misdemeanor to harm, threaten, or interfere with the care, custody, or control of a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal that is possessed by a person named in a protective order.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
ANALYSIS
Amends Section 85.021 of the Family Code by allowing a court to issue a protective order prohibiting a party from removing a pet, companion animal or assistance animal from the possession of a person named in the order.
Amends Section 85.022(b) of the Family Code as amended by Chapters 23 and 91, Acts of the 77th Legislature, Regular Session, 2001, by providing that in a protective order, the court may prohibit the person found to have committed family violence from harming, threatening, or interfering with the care, custody, or control of a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal that is possessed by a person protected by an order or by a member of the family or household of a person protected by an order.
Amends Section 25.07(a) and (g) of the Penal Code, and adds subsection (h) to provide that if a person harms, threatens, or interferes with the care, custody, or control of a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal that is possessed by a person protected by an order or by a member of the family or household of a person protected by an order, it is a Class B misdemeanor.
Amends Section 25.07(b) of the Penal Code by adding Subdivision (3) to define assistance animal as having the meaning assigned to it by Section 121.002 of the Human Resources Code.
EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2007
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE
C.S.H.B.1547 modifies the original H.B.1547 by providing that if a person harms, threatens, or interferes with the care, custody, or control of a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal that is possessed by a person protected by an order or by a member of the family or household of a person protected by an order, it is a Class B misdemeanor, rather than a Class A misdemeanor.