Are chickens pets? How a squabble over backyard hens landed before NC appeals court
Pet or poultry?
That’s the question at the center of a North Carolina Appeals Court decision starring four backyard hens and their disgruntled neighbors. Nearly two years ago, the neighbors successfully sued to have the chickens removed from their subdivision in Granville County.
Now a three-judge panel is asking the lower court to take a second look at the case.
At issue is a neighborhood rule barring residents of the Sleepy Hollow subdivision from raising “animals, livestock or poultry of any kind” while allowing families to have household pets such as cats and dogs.
According to the appellate court, questions remain as to whether the chickens are, in fact, family pets. The panel has instructed a superior court judge in Granville County to work through the debate on remand, and, in doing so, partially vacated the judge’s decision siding with the neighbors.
“There is still a genuine issue as to whether they indeed keep their hens as household pets and not otherwise for any commercial purpose,” the appeals court said in its opinion on Tuesday, April 5.
‘What is chicken?’
N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Chris Dillon penned the 11-page opinion, which begins with the quote, “The issue is, what is chicken?”
The case dates back to 2019, when Antonio and Uvetia Bryan sued their next-door neighbors, William and Hannah Kittinger, in Granville County Superior Court. The Bryans and the Kittingers were residents of Sleepy Hollow, a subdivision in Brassfield Township about 20 miles northeast of Durham.
According to the facts of the case outlined by the appeals court, the Kittingers moved to Sleepy Hollow in 2016 and kept four hens in a coop in the backyard, which the Bryans said violated the covenants that govern Sleepy Hollow.
One rule, in particular, states that “no animals, livestock or poultry of any kind shall be raised, bred or kept on the building site, except that dogs, cats or other household pets may be kept, provided that they are not bred or maintained for any commercial purpose.”
A superior court judge interpreted the rule as explicitly barring “poultry of any kind” and ruled in the Bryans’ favor without a trial in December 2019, court documents show.
The judge also issued an injunction preventing the Kittingers from keeping the chickens on their property.
One month later, Sleepy Hollow amended its covenants to allow up to five hens to be kept on any given property. Citing the amendment, the Kittingers asked the judge to revise her earlier finding. But she denied the motion in October 2020, prompting the Kittingers to file an appeal.
Attorneys for both the Bryans and the Kittingers did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on April 5.
‘Chickens are poultry’
In briefs filed with the appeals court, the Kittingers’ lawyer said the lower court failed to address whether the chickens were pets.
The Kittingers testified that they taught the chickens how to drink water as chicks, “cooked special meals for them when they were sick” and have given them treats and toys — including a swing. They said they treat the chickens the same as their two dogs that also stay outside the home.
“On one occasion, I attended a paint your pet event with friends and, at that time, I painted our hens (instead of our dogs),” Hannah Kittinger said in court documents.
A lawyer representing the Bryans, meanwhile, said the lower court reasoned correctly in finding the Kittingers had violated neighborhood regulations. He cited the judge’s order, which said, “Chickens are poultry. Chickens are poultry regardless of whether they are kept in the house, whether they’re kept in a henhouse. A chicken is poultry and is specifically excluded in these covenants. It says you may not have poultry. Bottom line, that’s it.”
The attorney said if the drafters of Sleepy Hollow’s covenants wanted poultry to be considered a household pet, they would have said as much.
“Under the defendants’ interpretation, one could have several dairy cows on the property provided that your own family drank the milk and regarded them as pets and not be in violation of the protective covenants,” the Bryans’ brief states.
Even if the chickens could be counted as pets, their lawyer said, they shouldn’t be considered as such because they don’t have names. William Kittinger reportedly prevented his wife from naming the hens Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie and Kendall after the Kardashian and Jenner families, according to the brief.
NC Appeals Court weighs in
The Court of Appeals didn’t rule on whether the Kittingers’ chickens were pets. But the panel did say the lower court erred in failing to consider the argument.
According to the opinion, the Kittingers have submitted evidence to show they regard the hens as pets. The Bryans, meanwhile, have said the “only interaction the defendants have with the hens is when defendants retrieve eggs from the coop.”
Because there is “genuine issue” as to which argument is correct, the appellate judges said, the lower court made a mistake in preemptively ruling for the Bryans.
The appeals court did, however, let stand the superior court judge’s ruling on the amended neighborhood agreement allowing residents to have up to five chickens. They said the amendment was passed in writing by owners from 11 of the 16 lots in Sleepy Hollow, but it did not include both spouses from the properties that are jointly owned.
The superior court judge had ruled the amendment invalid as a result. While the appeals court didn’t go so far as to invalidate the amendment, the panel said they didn’t think the lower court had erred in its judgment.
The case will now be remanded back down to Granville Superior Court, where the neighbors will litigate whether the chickens are actually pets.
The ruling was affirmed by N.C. Court of Appeal judges Richard Dietz and Toby Hampson.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Are chickens pets? How a squabble over backyard hens landed before NC appeals court."
