9 YO California Girl Wins $300K Settlement Over Slaughter Of Pet Goat

In 2022, a 9-year-old girl was raising a pet goat named Cedar, who was originally meant to be auctioned at the Shasta District Fair in Northern California. However, she became attached to her floppy-eared brown-and-white goat and refused to sell him. The fair was designed to teach animal husbandry and responsibility through caring for farm animals, often culminating in an auction where the animals are sold.

The minor’s mother, Jessica Long, seeing her daughter’s fondness for the pet, decided not to auction him. Long took the goat away from the fair, offered to pay for any costs, and pleaded with fair officials to let her daughter keep Cedar. Instead, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office deployed deputies, search warrant in hand, to drive 200 miles across Northern California to locate and seize the goat from Billy’s Mini Farm in Sonoma County, where Long had taken him until the dispute was resolved.

They threatened the Long family with criminal theft charges. Two Shasta County sheriff’s deputies drove to the farm and seized the goat. Law enforcement did not have a warrant to search but seized Cedar from the farm. The fair ignored the family’s pleas and sold Cedar for $902, of which $63 was owed to the fair as part of the sale.

Cedar was sold for $902 and was subsequently butchered. Reportedly, the identity of the butcher remains unknown, and Cedar's remains have still not been found.

When the girl learned of Cedar’s fate weeks after he was taken, she ran to her bed and cried under her covers, Long said. The Long family filed a lawsuit against the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.

In a 2022 interview with The New York Times, Gordon, who is the co-director of Advancing Law for Animals, a nonprofit law firm specialising in complex cases of animal law, said the sheriff’s deputies were “not the judge” and had no right to deem who was Cedar’s rightful owner.

How the compensation would be given to the minor

Two years later, on Friday, US District Judge Dale A. Drozd approved a settlement requiring Shasta County to pay $300,000 to Long and her daughter to settle the federal suit out of court. Long’s daughter, now 11, can claim the amount when she reaches legal adulthood. The compensation will be kept in a trust until then.

According to the Los Angeles Times, this case is partially settled, and the lawsuit is ongoing, with Long and her daughter still having claims against Shasta District Fair employees and a 4-H volunteer.