There is no torture factor involved. Going to court is the right and choice and sometimes responsibility of all citizens of the US. Just because it is unpleasant it is not torturous. You can ask for court costs but claims for lost wages and pain and suffering will not qualify in this situation. Pain and suffering is for pain and suffering. It is to compensate someone who is hurt and that is almost always a physical hurt. It can be for an emotional harm but that harm must be obvious (ie long term abuse) or such as sexual harassment and such at work. Being upset over your puppy getting hurt does not qualify as pain and suffering. The puppy itself does not qualify to receive pain and suffering.
The person who is accused can completely say they reacted. Even if you feel they over reacted many people would agree that being urinated on is a horrible thing that would make them fling a small dog off of them. To prove malice or intent there would have to be more time involved in the flinging of the dog. Right now the 'heat of the moment' is involved. If you tell me that my daughter is a ***** who sleeps with everyone in town and I punch you in the face the moment you say that, the heat of the
moment covers my actions if it is reasonable that I would have reacted in that manner dependent on what you said.
This started as someone who had a dog pee on them and threw the dog off them. They may or may not have felt remorse. It is not illegal to not give a ****. None of that speaks of malice, intent, or anything else to abuse and harm the dog. Right now it is being asked for intent to harm the puppy to be proven. 'She should have known that it would cause harm to a small breed puppy' is not proof of intent.
The harm to the dog really does not factor into this. Sure that sounds horrible but the fact that it is a small dog hurts the situation. If the dog had broken its spine and died, it is a 2lb dog. They are fragile. If the same happened to a 50lb dog then you would start showing intent to harm if the dog had been killed or very seriously harmed. Effort would have to be made. Small dogs are killed by being stepped on accidentally.
So she goes 'ACK!' and flings the dog from her body while leaping to her feet becuase the dog peed on her. The dog lands, cries, and staggers around with two broken ribs. She looks at the dog and goes 'sorry but it shouldn't have peed on me' and shrugs when you say the ribs are broken again saying 'it shouldn't have peed on me, ugh'.
Unpleasant, but not proof of intent to harm.
I'll continue further. The heat of the moment is to help explain how the action is an automatic one. The people on this forum are dog people. Many have been peed on before. The average person in our country is NOT urinated on. It is horrible and offensive to them. Try asking an average person how they'd react to being peed on while sitting on their couch.
Now shaken baby is again totally different. It has intent. The child is screaming yes but the relationship of caregiver and child is different from the relationship of friend and puppy. Also, the mental acceptance of a child is different from that of a dog. The value placed on them is different. Shaken baby the baby cries the person can no longer deal, they snap mentally and go and shake the child to get it to stop. The child's neck is broken or its brain is bruised and bleeds out from the shaking to get them to stop screaming. It is a loss of control but rarely is the intent to harm the child. The person just wants the child to stop and goes overboard because they lose control. That's why its not first degree murder although it is murder and should be charged as such.
So I can't compare the two at all. She did not throw the dog in an effort to get it to stop doing what it was doing. The dog had not been peeing every where and she followed it and threw it finally because she was frustrated with the peeing and she couldn't get the dog to stop and she finally snapped inside and threw the dog.
She reacted to a dog urinating on her.
P.S. Lets not get into a discussion on shaken baby syndrome and punishments please unless yall want to. I'm done on that one.