Allergic Mother Loses Attempt to Prohibit Kids' Contact With Cat
By Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal

April 30, 2008, New York Law Journal (USA)---A woman who claimed that she is allergic to her ex-husband's cat cannot prevent their two children from visiting their father's home, a Long Island, N.Y., judge has ruled. Following a hearing earlier this month in Mandel v. Mandel, 203448/06, Acting Supreme Court Justice Hope S. Zimmerman of Nassau County ruled that there was no "legal or factual basis to exclude the children" from their father's apartment.

The feline in question, an 18-month-old orange and white male tabby named Indie, was acquired by Stanley Mandel in 2006, after he moved out of the home he shared with Susan Mandel. The couple is in the process of getting a divorce. The parties' 13- and 16-year-old sons live with Ms. Mandel but visit their father once during the week and during every other weekend.

According to the decision, Ms. Mandel is allergic to dogs, cats and certain foods and takes medications for her condition. In November 2006, Ms. Mandel e-mailed her husband, asking him to "take certain precautions with the children" so that her health would not be jeopardized after the children returned from visiting their father. In June or July 2007, Ms. Mandel testified that she was hospitalized with a "severe attack brought on by exposure to the cat through the children."

Since then, the children had not visited their father at his apartment. Ms. Mandel claimed that prolonged exposure to Indie had prompted the attack and she is now required to take stronger medication. None of her friends have cats, she testified, and none of her co-workers own cats.

In contrast, Mr. Mandel testified that Ms. Mandel did not object to the children visiting him at the home until he stopped paying the mortgage on the marital residence. From November 2006 until July 2007, he said, the children would change their clothes at his apartment before returning home or in the garage of the wife's residence before entering the dwelling. Further, Mr. Mandel claimed, the children "regularly socialize" at the marital residence with friends who have cats and dogs as pets. Neither side asserted that the children are allergic to Indie.

As the parties "have not cited nor has the court found any reported case on the issue presented," Justice Zimmerman analyzed the issue in terms of harmful activities in the presence of children restricted by courts, such as smoking. In Lizzio v. Jackson, 226 AD2d 760, the court restricted the parent smoking from anywhere in the household; smoking was limited to one room in the house outside of the child's presence in Roofeh v. Roofeh, 138 Misc 2d. 889. In a third case cited by the judge, DeMatteo v. DeMatteo, 194 Misc. 2d 640, the court prohibited parents from smoking in the home even if the children were not present, on the theory that secondhand smoke "could very well cause cancer in children exposed to it."

However, she found that Indie's presence here offered no legal or factual basis for similar restrictions. Instead, Zimmerman instructed that Ms. Mandel should "make a change of clothes available in the garage for the children." In turn, the children will take "the reasonable precaution" of changing their clothes before re-entering their home after visits with their father.

Jeffrey S. Schecter & Associates of Garden City, N.Y., represented Mr. Mandel. Mark O. Wasserman of Wasserman & Enoksen in Jericho, N.Y., represented Ms. Mandel.