Quantity with Quality
The Curious Case of South Dakota v. Fifteen Impounded Cats
Why free-range felines and mobile domiciles are a bad mix
This is my next story in a series of articles responding to Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s challenge to produce a short quality article with three take home points each day for thirty days.
I have chosen to use Wikipedia’s main page as inspiration, choosing one topic from their “Did You Know” section as topical encouragement.
On August 13, 2009 a police officer in the state of South Dakota stopped a woman while driving. The woman nearly struck the police officer’s patrol car as she was backing out of a parking space. The cause of the near miss appeared to be that one or more of the 15 cats in the car impeded the driver’s vision, nearly causing a collision.
The officer impounded the cats based on poor sanitary conditions in the car, including a full litter box. The driver lived in her car along with the feline co-occupants.
The state of South Carolina felt that the conditions were unsustainable for either human or cat and refused to release the cats to the driver, instead offering them up for adoption.
The driver sued the state to regain custody, but lost the case based on South Carolina taking the tack of using a “jurisdiction in rem” argument which alleged that the existence of the cats in the car created exigent circumstances. The court returned a 3–2 verdict supporting the seizure of the cats.
The driver appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court, posing a series of arguments hoping to prove the seizure unlawful, but ultimately the state prevailed proving that the seizure was indeed permissible in light of the potential danger to both pedestrians and the cats themselves.
What We Can Learn from a Bunch of Cats in a Car
Surely the driver and cat owner loved her feline friends, or she wouldn’t have fought to retain custody. However, by the court’s definition she simply had too much on her plate to keep herself, her cats and the public-at-large safe.
I am guessing it wasn’t part of some master plan for her to live in her car with so many cats. We all sometimes find ourselves in places that perhaps we didn’t imagine landing.
It is important to make periodic self-checks and reaffirm whether we are where we need to be and/or on a legitimate course to get there.
Take home points:
- We are all free to live as we desire and pursue our own version of happiness; however, we may face consequences when our choices endanger others.
- When we are managing a large amount of resources, one way to self-check our ability to juggle it all is whether we have systems in place that accommodate all our resources. In this case, having enough carriers to house the cats during driving sessions would have eliminated the danger. And, if the car wasn’t large enough to contain the carriers, that would be a great indicator that we have taken on too much responsibility.
- Sometimes we have to make tough choices now in order to avoid significantly harsher choices down the road. Perhaps if the driver had found other homes for some of her feline charges, she would have been able to keep a few herself. By avoiding that choice, she ultimately faced less-desirable circumstances.
How do you know if you are juggling too many plates? If your systems aren’t keeping up with your responsibility level, how do you handle the situation? Do you ignore it?
Are there choices you could make right now that will save you heartache and/or headache down the road? How do you evaluate when to make those choices?
It is never easy to herd cats.
If you liked this article, you may also like:
Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.
