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When parties voluntarily enter into an agreement, there is a minimum of what is expected of them. In the case of Petknode, the customers pay the company RM3.95 per night. In return, Petknode will provide care for the customers’ cat pets. Simple and uncontroversial responsibilities.

Many would take that for granted. I would. Those responsibilities are set in stone. Failure to fulfil the agreement warrants punitive action within reason and the victims have the rights to demand reasonable compensation however reasonableness is defined.

The state has a responsibility to ensure that the punitive action is taken, unless the parties mutually agree to settle it amicably among themselves. The state also has the responsibility to ensure that the victims are properly compensated by those whom breached the contract, with the same qualification. After all, one of the functions of the state within libertarian tradition is the enforcement of contract.

With about 300 cats found starving with 16 more dead in the care of Petknode according to The Malaysian Insider, the company has failed to fulfil its end of the bargain. Lawyers may argue the finer points of what care is but surely, death has to be the ultimately failure under any kind of definition with respect to this episode.

Anybody who believes in the sanctity of contract will easily find Petknode at fault. It is a breach of contract. There is no excuse for the breach so far. As at this moment, we have learned nothing that could have prevented Petknode from fulfilling its duties. This is appearing to be a case sheer negligence.

And that negligence creates a case of cheating. To take potshots, this is how Petknode advertised its service: cut cost, not quality. The fact that hundreds of pet cats were left to starve and die shows the kind of deplorable service level Petknode provided. Both cost and quality were cut.

I would very much like to see the owners and operators of Petknode not only refund the money it cheated of its customers, but also severely punished for their irresponsibility, even to the point of bankruptcy.

To many, perhaps the loss of lives is a graver wrong than the breach of contract. What makes the owners and operators of Petknode all the more repulsive really is the nonchalant attitude it assumed against lives entrusted under its care. I take that line but in a world where the value of animal lives is debatable and definitely not universal, the libertarian contract argument is the best minimum to rationalize action against Petknode.

Furthermore, the death is a consequence of the breach of contract. I always prefer to derive the solution from the root, not from result. Even if there was no death, it would still be a breach of contract and therefore, punishable by the state (of course, with the typical caveat of a guilty verdict in a court of law of repute). Nine days spent trapped in a small cage with terribly insufficient food and water is not care. It is torture.

I am also in the opinion that the victims should pursue civil suit against Petknode rather than letting the incompetent Department of Veterinary Service or the police exhausts their options, if they are going to exhaust it at all. Judging how the police are handling the case, it seems that the police do not think much of it. The accused are roaming free and the crime scene is being cleaned up by family members of the accused. It is as if nothing happened.  This goes back to how much an individual values a life of an animal. The police officers handling this case are probably thinking, ah, they are just cats.

I think the lawyers would be more ferocious in pursuing the case, and have (libertarian or otherwise) justice served. Need I say, people respond to incentive?