The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

By Jenna Greene

May 8 (Reuters) - A Delaware Chancery Court judge is indeed a rarified jurist, ruling on the intricacies of billion-dollar deals and high-stakes shareholder challenges.

Also, a goldendoodle named Tucker.

The post-breakup fight over custody of the Very Good Boy by his two co-owners seems as bitterly intractable as, say, litigation over Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package or the failed merger of grocery chains Albertsons and Kroger – albeit on a much smaller, furrier scale. It also underscores what strikes me as a basic disconnect in the law, which views dogs as personal property, akin to a table or a lamp, even if many of us consider them beloved family members.

The case has landed in the lap of the court’s newest judge, Vice Chancellor Bonnie David, after originating in Delaware’s Justice of the Peace Court, progressing to the Court of Common Pleas, then to the Superior Court and now the Court of Chancery. (Should we expect a U.S. Supreme Court cert petition next?)

On Wednesday, David ruled that Tucker was subject to partition as jointly owned property of his dueling co-parents, Karen Callahan and Joseph Nelson – but no, not in a Gordian Knot way.

"Concerned readers may rest assured that Tucker will not be partitioned in kind (i.e., physically divided),” she wrote.

Whew.

Instead, David ruled that one pooch parent will be Tucker’s sole owner and the other will receive a monetary payment but declined to specify who gets what. She urged the parties to “see if they can reach agreement on a proposed process.”

The vice-chancellor suggested they employ a corporate law tool– a blind bidding auction, where the highest bidder buys out the lower bidder’s interest. A public auction wouldn’t make sense, she added, given “the parties here attach far more value to Tucker than would any member of the public.”

“Or the parties could propose a better alternative,” she said.

Callahan’s lawyer, Bill Larson, a partner at MG+M The Law Firm in Wilmington, said via email that his client “remains hopeful and optimistic about finding an equitable remedy that will allow her to bring Tucker back home to her.”

Nelson’s counsel, Josiah Wolcott of Connolly Gallagher, also in Wilmington, declined comment on the litigation but said his client “absolutely believes that this case highlights the issue with how the law treats animals as mere personal property.”

According to court papers, Callahan and Nelson were neighbors as children. They reunited and began dating in late 2018, and Callahan moved into Nelson’s house in Bear, Delaware, in early 2019.

In April 2020, they adopted Tucker, who came to them via Nelson’s daughter, a veterinarian, after the poodle/golden retriever mix was surrendered by his previous owners at the facility where she worked.

In photos submitted as part of a lower court filing, Tucker appears as an amber-colored fluff ball, so adorable that he could pass for a stuffed animal.

Nelson’s daughter testified at trial in 2023 that she’d intended Tucker as a gift for her father, whose prior dog Biscuit had died. But Callahan was the one who picked Tucker up from the facility, paying $644 to cover his veterinary bills. She also registered him in her name through PetHub.

Callahan and Nelson then shared in the costs and efforts to maintain the dog until they broke up in 2022.

They’ve been fighting over Tucker, who has remained in Nelson’s possession, ever since.

If the couple had been married, David noted, Tucker's fate might have been a question for the Family Court to resolve, pointing to state legislation enacted in 2023. The law directs the Family Court to “take into consideration the well-being” of a companion animal when awarding ownership in a divorce proceeding.

But because Callahan and Nelson never wed, “partition provides the mechanism for these co-owners to sever their property interests,” David wrote. Without such a remedy, she added, the two “might remain trapped in joint ownership of their pet indefinitely, notwithstanding what I assume is a mutual desire to go separate ways.”

(Reporting by Jenna Greene)

((jenna.greene@thomsonreuters.com;))