The Aggravating Structure of California's Animal Fight Laws

While I was writing my previous post on abnormally dangerous animals, I got caught up in some peripheral research on liability schemes for keeping wild animals. Defendants who keep wild animals are typically strictly liable for any damage those animals end up causing. According to section 507 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, the rationale for this strict liability is that the defendants who keep dangerous wild animals "create a danger not normal to the locality in question." To put this into more understandable terms, if somebody were to keep a bear or lion in a cage, they would be liable for any damage the animal would cause upon its escape. Plaintiffs harmed by the animal would not need to show that the person keeping the animal was negligent.

This led to some tangential research into the issue of California laws relating to bears, which brought me to California Penal Code section 597b outlaws fights between animals, but it does so in a complicated and unpleasant manner. Here are several subsections of the statute:

(a) Except as provided in subdivisions (b) and (c), any person who, for amusement or gain, causes any bull, bear, or other animal, not including any dog, to fight with like kind of animal or creature, or causes any animal, including any dog, to fight with a different kind of animal or creature, or with any human being, or who, for amusement or gain, worries or injures any bull, bear, dog, or other animal, or causes any bull, bear, or other animal, not including any dog, to worry or injure each other, or any person who permits the same to be done on any premises under his or her charge or control, or any person who aids or abets the fighting or worrying of an animal or creature, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine. 

(b) Any person who, for amusement or gain, causes any cock to fight with another cock or with a different kind of animal or creature or with any human being; or who, for amusement or gain, worries or injures any cock, or causes any cock to worry or injure another animal; and any person who permits the same to be done on any premises under his or her charge or control, and any person who aids or abets the fighting or worrying of any cock is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine.

 . . .

(d) For the purposes of this section, aiding and abetting a violation of this section shall consist of something more than merely being present or a spectator at a place where a violation is occurring.

Subsection (a) comes across terribly because it makes sure to avoid addressing dog vs. dog animal fights. Those fights are addressed in California Penal Code 597.5, which takes a much harsher approach to those fights. It outlaws the training of those animals with the intent that they eventually fight, and it makes training the animals and conducting the fights felonies, rather than misdemeanors.

This explains some of the choppiness of subsection (a), though I think the statute could be more artfully drafted. But why was cockfighting not included in (a) by simply adding "cock" into the "bull, bear, or other animal" list? And why would a cock just not be an "other animal," under the original list? This would seem to make subsection (b) completely unnecessary.

I have no explanation for this odd drafting other than my own theory that lawmakers wanted to appear tough on cockfighting. Adding an unnecessary additional subsection that specifically addressed that practice was the way to exude this tough attitude.