AG seeks injunction to stop kennel owner

HARRISBURG - The state Attorney General's Office has moved to shut down a major dog kennel operator.

In a contempt petition filed yesterday, Attorney General Tom Corbett asked Commonwealth Court to revoke the right of Joyce and Raymond Stoltzfus of Lancaster County to do business in Pennsylvania and to impose fines of $4.4 million.

The request alleges hundreds of violations of a three-year-old consumer-fraud settlement over the sale of sick puppies.

The filing charges that the Stoltzfuses, who operate CC Pets L.L.C., failed to identify their business in 884 ads on Internet sites and in at least four newspapers, including The Inquirer, as required under a 2005 consent petition.

"There is no room in Pennsylvania for dog breeders who regularly deceive consumers, repeatedly violate the law, and willfully ignore previous legal actions by the Attorney General's Office," Corbett said through a spokesman. "The continued operation of CC Pets is an attack on our consumer-protection laws and an insult to the many legitimate dog breeders and sellers across the state, and we are asking the court to move quickly to close this business permanently."

Corbett seeks the maximum fine of $5,000 per violation.

Reached by phone yesterday, Joyce Stoltzfus said the ads she placed contained her identification.

"I had 'CC Pets' in there in the ads," she said.

The Stoltzfuses' lawyer, Michael Winters, did not return a call seeking comment. The Stoltzfuses have 20 days to reply to the petition.

CC Pets sold more than 2,000 puppies in the last year, for between $125 and $900 each, putting it among the state's highest-volume dog sellers.

In 2005, the Stoltzfuses were the subject of the largest-ever state consumer-fraud settlement involving the sale of sick and defective dogs. The suit was filed on behalf of 171 customers who bought sick dogs from the Stoltzfuses, who were then doing business as Puppy Love kennel.

The Stoltzfuses were fined $75,000 in restitution and costs and were required to get health checks for the puppies they sold and identify their kennel in all classified advertising, either by name or as a licensed kennel.

The provision was included so that consumers could research the kennel, which has a history of misrepresenting puppies as healthy, according to the Attorney General's Office.

An Inquirer review last winter found that scores of classified ads placed with The Inquirer and other newspapers and Internet sites failed to identify the business.

The Attorney General's Office filed the contempt petition after the newspapers and Internet sites confirmed that classified ads placed by CC Pets in 2007 and 2008 did not contain any identification.

"I think the bottom line is that an informed consumer is a powerful consumer and the provision was clearly meant to keep consumers informed," said Garen Meguerian, a Chester County lawyer representing a Cape May couple in their consumer fraud suit against CC Pets and its veterinarian, Tom Stevenson. "By taking it out, they kept consumers in the dark about what they were doing."

Libby Williams, founder of New Jersey Consumers Against Pet Shop Abuse, a clearinghouse for dog-sale complaints, said she had received at least 100 complaints from anguished families who bought what they thought were healthy puppies from the Stoltzfuses.

"They spent a few hundred dollars for a puppy; they never anticipated they'd have to spend thousands more trying to save the dog's life," she said. "The common thread from consumers was, 'I want her shut down. I don't care what it takes.' "

The Stoltzfuses, who have operated a kennel since at least 1986, have a history of legal troubles with the state. In 1997, Attorney General Mike Fisher filed an injunction to close their kennel under the consumer-protection act, alleging that it misrepresented that the puppies it sold were healthy and purebred.

Commonwealth Court found for the Stoltzfuses, saying the state failed to prove that the dogs were sick at the time of sale. A lawsuit filed at the same time by the Attorney General's Office led to the first consent agreement in 2000 and fines totaling $35,000.

The 2005 consent petition - Corbett which touted as placing the strictest-ever consumer protection standards on a kennel - was the result of violations of the 2000 agreement.

The Attorney General's Office has logged 58 consumer complaints about the kennel since 2005.

Corbett's spokesman, Kevin Harley, said the attorney general was confident the classified-ad violations presented a more clear-cut case than the suit over the dog-health issues.

"It's black and white; either they placed the ads or they didn't," Harley said. "We allege they did."

Read the attorney general's petition at http://go.philly.com/kennel

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