Judge: Therapy dog can stay in sorority
Whether the strained sisterly bonds between Ohio State Chi Omega chapter members Madeleine Entine and Cary Goldman can be repaired is unknown.
What is known is that Cory, Entine’s 8-yearold Cavalier King Charles Spaniel assistance dog, will remain in their sorority house.
On Friday, U. S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley granted Entine’s request for a preliminary injunction to prohibit the university from banning Cory from the house. The preliminary injunction will stay in effect until the case goes to trial. No trial date has been set.
The university’s Americans With Disabilities coordinator, Scott Lissner, the defendant in Entine’s lawsuit, had informed her that the dog had to go because Goldman — who blamed Cory for aggravating her allergies and who suffers from Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder and inflammatory bowel disease — had reserved her room in the sorority house first.
For Marbley, however, the case rested on evidence that showed Entine had obtained ADA protection, but there was no evidence that Goldman had sought similar protection for her health concerns.
Cory was exempt from the Chi Omega house ban on pets because of Entine’s ADA status.
The judge also said that Lissner “did not even establish that it was Cory who aggravated the symptoms of Goldman’s disability.”
“Under clearly established law, Entine and Cory prevail,” Marbley wrote in his 21-page opinion.
Entine, a second-year undergraduate at Ohio State, has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. She has panic attacks that leave her gasping for air and at times immobile.
Medical staff confirmed that Entine met the diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, according to her lawsuit against Lissner.
She said that having Cory on her restores her ability to breathe and move. The smell of the dog also lowers her heart rate during her panic attacks, and the dog licks the tears from her face when she can’t reach for tissues. The dog’s mere presence has resulted in fewer and shorter panic attacks, she said.
Goldman, also a secondyear undergraduate at Ohio State, said that when she returned to the sorority house in August, her allergies flared. She could hardly breathe and couldn’t sleep, and rashes formed on her body. She couldn’t take antibiotics because of her Crohn’s disease, she testified last week, and her allergic reaction to Cory aggravated her disease.
“It’s not a livable situation when you can’t go to the bathroom for three to four weeks,” Goldman testified in a hearing on Entine’s request for a permanent injunction. “You about feel dead because you’re so helpless.”
The symptoms affect Goldman’s ability to attend class and socialize, causing her anxiety for which she is seeing a therapist, according to court documents.
She said that she had to avoid Cory in some areas of the house where he was not supposed to be because Entine did not always keep him on her side of the house.
Entine’s attorney, Bart Keyes, disputed those allegations and said Entine was prepared to work out some sort of compromise.
Lawyers with the state attorney general’s office, who represented university employee Lissner, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Even if the dog did stay on one side of the house, Goldman’s roommate sometimes came back to their room with the dog’s hair or dander on her clothes because she had unwittingly picked it up from a common area, Goldman testified.
Marbley sympathized with Goldman’s condition, but said, “While the Court does not intend to minimize the difficulty Goldman faces by living with Crohn’s disease, allergies and asthma, she has simply not established that it is Cory’s presence that causes her harm.”
Lissner had offered to move Entine and Cory to other university housing. Entine declined, saying the sorority house provides social relationships and living and dining experiences not available in campus housing. Also, Entine said she is a Chi Omega chapter vice president, which requires her to live in the house.
“This case is about a thorny and largely unmapped legal issue: how the University should reconcile the needs of two disabled students whose reasonable accommodations are (allegedly) fundamentally at odds,” Marbley wrote.