Service Animals

The bill adds a new part to West Virginia law to make it against the law to attack or hurt a service animal, and sets punishments for doing that

• Service animal: an animal taught to assist a person who is blind, deaf, hard of hearing, or has a disability. 

• If this bill passes:

  • If the animal is not helping the person when someone tries to hurt the animal, but the person doing it knows the animal is a service animal, the person will get in trouble.  

  • No one or pets or animals they own, can:  

    • Tease, hit, or hurt a service animal.  

    • Throw anything at a service animal. 

    • Interrupt or stop: 

      • The service animal.  

      • Someone who’s blind, deaf, hard of hearing, or disabled and is being helped by a service animal, in a way that:  

        • Limits or takes away the person's control over the service animal.  

        • Lets the service animal out from its area.  

        • Enters the area without asking, including putting stuff in there 

        • Stops the service animal from helping.  

  • Breaking these rules means a person will have to: 

    • Go to jail for as long as one year or

    • Pay as much as $500 or

    • going to jail and paying money.  

    • On top of these, the person who broke the rules has to pay for any follow-up costs the person who works with the service animal had to pay because of the harm.

      • This amount of money will be based on:

        • How much money the service animal is worth 

        • How much it costs to replace, train, or retrain the service animal and the person it works with. 

        • Medical costs for the service animal.  

        • Medical costs for the person working with the animal.  

        • Income the person working with the service animal lost in the time they could not use the service animal.