Dog-Napping Lawyer Ordered To Return Pooch

Attorney couple wages custody battle over dog.

When attorney Natalie Simpson grabbed three-year-old boxer Layla off the street in broad daylight, she was barking up the wrong tree, according to Ontario Superior Court Justice Eugenia Papageorgiou in a recent ruling.

According to the opinion, Simpson and fellow attorney Michael Duboff were in a common law relationship for four years between 2015 and 2019. Layla was adopted in 2018. After the couple split, Duboff would occasionally leave the dog with Simpson to look after, owing to the couple’s amicable split.

That “amicable” part seems to have disintegrated in early 2020 when Duboff started dating someone new.

Simpson didn’t see the dog for about five months before…

Approximately one year after their separation and five months after Natalie had last seen Layla or communicated with Michael, Natalie saw Layla being walked by someone who she did not know on St. Clair Avenue. It was Julieta Mandelbaum (“Juli”), Michael’s new girlfriend. Natalie stopped her car, ran across the street and struck up a conversation with Juli. She then took Layla’s leash and ran across St. Clair Avenue to a car where one of her co-workers was parked. Juli telephoned Michael and followed Natalie, begging for her to return Layla but Natalie put Layla in the car and drove away.

Bold.

That gave rise to a civil proceeding over dog custody that unintentionally serves as a warning against ever dating a lawyer… ever. From the opinion:

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This matter was very important to the parties. Natalie even had two lawyers representing her. Each of Michael’s and Natalie’s closing submissions were approximately 75 pages long.

Do they not know aboot page limits in Canada? Because they’re useful.

In the end, Duboff prevailed. As Court Report Canada explains:

Simpson argued that the couple made joint decision about Layla’s care, citing emails and texts that suggesting the dog was jointly owned, including a message where Duboff wrote that he had “found a dog for you,” and an email to the vet announcing, “Natalie and I are getting a new puppy.” But Justice Papageorgiou was not convinced:

“I agree with Michael that, in the context of all the other evidence before me, these texts are not evidence of ownership but rather communications between a committed couple. Layla was their family dog, but it does mean that she was jointly owned,” she concluded.

And as a dog rather than a child, Layla has to belong to someone else the courts get involved in supervised visits which would strain judicial resources even more than wading through 150-pages of filings about a dog.

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As it’s not possible to talk about Layla without a coda, Justice Eugenia Papageorgiou concludes:

If the parties cannot agree on costs, they may make submissions no longer than 5 pages each, Michael Duboff within 7 days and Natalie within 7 days thereafter.

So this ugly episode can end with the heartwarming news that she’s learned her lesson about page limits.

Toronto lawyer must return dog-napped boxer to ex-partner, judge rules [Court Report Canada]


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.