Katherine Gerrard, 60, in the personal injury lawsuit said she also has nightmares because of the loss of her cats after officials took the animals two separate times during February 2015 from her Vassar Drive home in Vacaville.
Gerrard is a volunteer cat rescue worker for Felicks Feline Rescue, according to the suit, and was temporarily keeping the cats.
Neighbors had complained about purported animal odors coming from the Vassar Drive home but Gerrard corresponded with the city and said raccoons and a neighbor’s cat had visited her backyard, states the suit filed earlier this month in Solano County Superior Court.
Gerrard was forced to watch for 10 hours as officials used metal lassos to take about 88 cats from her home Feb. 6, 2015, and returned the next week to take 12 more, the suit states.
Cats screamed, panicked, ran, defecated, urinated, scratched and clawed, according to the suit.
Gerrard was handcuffed and placed in a vehicle during the second incident after being told she was too slow gathering the cats, the suit contends.
A May 24 case management conference is scheduled in Gerrard’s lawsuit.
Solano County spokesman Matthew Davis said Thursday that, “We believe that the compliant lacks merit and that the public entities and their agents and employees acted appropriately and lawfully in addressing the deplorable conditions created by the plaintiff.”
Vacaville city spokesman Mark Mazzaferro said the municipality would not comment on the lawsuit.
An order last April 3 by the Solano County Superior Court decided the cats taken from Gerrard’s home would remain at the county animal shelter, which could charge $1,500 a day to care for the cats.
The court order said the number of cats at the house violated Vacaville’s city code and that a Feb. 20, 2015, written notice provided Gerrard with 14 days to pay charges for impounding the animals.
“Custody and control of the cats are hereby relinquished to the county,” the order read in part. Disposition of the cats was not a matter over which the court had jurisdiction, continued the order, which said the county had control of the cats.
Lt. Cathy Raymos, operations manager for the Solano County Animal Shelter, had said last April about euthanizing the animals that, “We were warehousing cats.”
“It just wasn’t fair to them,” Raymos had said.
About a third of the cats were sent to other shelters or cat rescue groups, the operations manager said.
Gerrard said in court last April that she had asked that her cats be returned to her.
“All I do is socialize them so they can be adopted,” she said. “The only victims right now are innocent cats.”
The cats were healthy and in a 2,000-square-foot, four-bedroom house, Gerrard said.
In an April 9, 2015, voicemail left at the Daily Republic after the court order and euthanization of the animals, she said, “They just killed all my cats” and read the names of scores of cats.
A claim Gerrard filed last August against the city of Vacaville said the treatment of her animals when taken in February “left her with serious emotional and psychological distress.”
She said she was not allowed to reclaim the cats before they were destroyed.
Vacaville rejected the claim last September.
Gerrard and her cats attracted extensive news coverage, including a story last year in the Daily Mail of London.
Comments on website:
"This woman is unbalanced. She has no respect for personal property. She was feeding and letting feral cats go on our property and when we asked her to stop she berated my husband and wrote a fictitious Yelp review and obsessively texts his business phone number. She thinks she's part of a TNR program, but she did not spay/neuter any of the cats let go on our property. Instead we are left with horrible pest problems, sick cats and garbage from her feedings. We had to involve a reputable TNR program to help alleviate the cat problem Katherine Gerrard created. The VVPD advised we would have to get a restraining order against her and then when she broke it, they could do something about it."
"The City should descend upon her house again, she has been seen coming and going with loads of cat related materials and likely has another 100 cats in her home at this time. Those poor animals; she should be tried for animal cruelty. Again, the ordinance is clear: 3 pets. It's pretty awful that neighbors surrounding her property cannot enjoy the outdoors surrounding the property due to the horrific stench coming from her property."
"This woman doesn't earn a living legally, yet she continues to hoard cats, leave food out to attract more cats, threaten neighbors and workers around the neighborhood and now she is suing for her illegal activities. Last I checked, the limit is 3 animals not 125. This isn't a cat lover,she is a cat hater and hoarder.Her selfish and cruel behavior cost over 69 cats their lives. Did she pay for removal, euthanization, moving the cats to other shelters????"
"Kathy Gerrard has a terrible reputation in the rescue community. Every cat she sees she thinks is being abused by its owner or abandoned. I have been working in animal rescue for over 7 years and have never heard of "Felicks Feline Rescue" probably because it doesn't exist. There is no rescue in its right mind that would have any of their volunteers 'hold' that many cats for them. Kathy is a cat hoarder. I hope that this ridiculous law suit shows exactly how mentally ill she is and forces her to get some help. She is not stable and scary. She does have some minions that follow her around, but she will even turn on them in a second if they don't agree with her."
"Having had a first hand encounter with this woman, she is vile, rude and overly aggressive. She has cost the tax payers of Vacaville and Solano County tens of thousands of dollars, manpower time and resources to make her comply with the law and cleanup the hazmat at her resident. Now she wants to sue, the county and city needs to place liens against her to recover costs."
(Daily Republic - Feb 19, 2016)
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