In response to numerous pet-owners bringing untrained, badly-behaved “emotional support” animals to places they shouldn’t, the Washington legislature passed a series of laws on January 1, 2019.
The first law re-defines “service animal”
Service animal now means any “dog or miniature horse” (not cat, pig, rat, alpaca, or turkey), that is “trained to do work or perform tasks” for someone with a “physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.” Examples of “work” or “tasks” include, guiding blind people, alerting deaf people of noise, pulling wheelchairs, assisting people during a seizure, retrieving medicines or a phone, helping people with psychiatric and neurological disabilities by interrupting impulsive or destructive behavior. Notably, the “provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship do not constitute work or tasks.”
This means that small business owners no longer have to fear discrimination lawsuits from unreasonable people who insist on bringing their pets to public places with no legitimate reason for doing so. Small business owners are still not allowed to discriminate against anyone for their “race, creed, color, national origin, sex, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability.”
To verify that someone’s dog is actually a service animal, small businesses can ask if (1) the animal is required because of a disability and (2) what work or task the animal has been trained to perform. You cannot ask either of these questions if it is obvious that the animal is trained to do work for a disabled person, i.e. the dog is pulling someone in a wheelchair. You cannot ask about a person’s disability. You cannot demand “proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal, or require that the service animal demonstrate its task.”
The second law requires reasonable modifications for service Miniature Horses
Small businesses must make “reasonable modifications” to allow disabled people to use miniature horses if the horse “has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.” The legislature states that businesses open to the public should act “in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations” in “determining whether reasonable modifications can be made to allow a miniature horse” into the business. In other words, if allowing the service miniature horse into the business would violate another law or health code, then the business does not need to accommodate the horse.
The third law penalizes bad actors
As of January 1, 2019, it is now a civil infraction to misrepresent a pet as a service animal. The infraction is punishable by a fine of up to $500.
The legislature states, “the misrepresentation of an animal as a service animal trained to perform specific work or tasks constitutes a disservice both to persons who rely on the use of legitimate service animals, as well as places of public accommodation and their patrons. The purpose of this act is to penalize the intentional misrepresentation of a service animal, which delegitimizes the genuine need for the use of service animals and makes it harder for persons with disabilities to gain unquestioned acceptance of their legitimate, properly trained, and essential service animals.” We couldn’t agree more.
