Woman wins claim she needs dog to fight depression

August 10, 2004, 3:24 AM

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) -- The Michigan Civil Rights Commission and a judge have blocked the eviction of a woman who says her late mother's dog helps her fight depression over the mother's death.

The commission and a judge say Christine Emmick has a disability and is entitled to keep her Shih Tzu, Max, despite Royalwood Cooperative Apartments' no-pets rule.

Such rulings generally are reserved for so-called service animals like seeing-eye dogs.

The apartment complex "refused to reasonably accommodate her mental disability by allowing her to keep a dog," the civil rights commission ruled earlier this year.

That violates the state's Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, the commission said. It awarded Emmick $107,749 in emotional damages and attorney fees.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Fred Mester upheld the decision after a hearing Wednesday.

"I was skeptical of the case at first," Mester told the Detroit Free Press on Monday. "But when you look at the facts of the case, the cooperative was violating the law.

"This is not a case where somebody says, "I have a headache, and a dog would make it better.' This woman had a well-documented disability and was able to prove that the dog helps her in coping with that disability."

A lawyer for the co-op criticized the ruling.

"The Royalwood Cooperative believes the decision is wrong on the law and the facts," said Patrick Rode. "The dog, as far as the cooperative is concerned, is nothing more than a pet."

In 1998, Emmick's mother, a South Carolina resident, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Emmick moved her mother to Michigan a few months later to care for her, along with Max.

The co-op board warned Emmick that the dog had to go. Emmick responded with a letter from her mother's doctors at Cancer Care Associates of Royal Oak.

"Due to the therapeutic and humanistic benefits of owning, loving and caring for a pet, it is felt to be in this patient's best interest to be able to keep her dog with her," the doctors wrote.

The cooperative told her again in October 1999 that the dog had to go.

Emmick and her mother found a senior subsidized apartment in Rochester Hills that allowed pets. Emmick's mother lived there with Max until she was hospitalized in June 2000, and she died two months later.

Following her mother's death, Emmick took Max back to her Royalwood apartment. In April 2001, the cooperative's board of directors voted to evict her.

Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Abramsky told the civil rights commission that Emmick's relationship with Max "kept her afloat and stabilized her functionally and emotionally ... without the dog, she would probably spend most of her life in bed."

"The dog seems to be an essential part of her improvement," he said.